In Ruins
by KaydenceRei
Summary: (Sequel to The Gray Areas.) The cost of survival just got higher. Six months after Ultron and Bruce's disappearance, Ross believes he found the key to capturing Bruce. Ross will stop at nothing to get what he wants and he starts by trying to take the one thing he knows to be the scientist's weakness; Natasha. (Post AoU.)
1. Chapter 1

For any **_new readers_** , keep in mind that yes, this is post- **AoU** , but it's also a sequel to **The Gray Areas**.

Typically I avoid making a prologue like the plague, though in this case, I've made an exception for the sake of the story. First shout out goes to **Black Victors' Cachat**.

Welcome back to the journey and enjoy the first part of **In Ruins**.

 **Prologue** :

The large video screen on the wall turned itself on, connecting an incoming call without ever giving Natasha a choice in the matter. She narrowed her eyes slightly and then she masked herself into neutrality before she turned towards the unwelcome intrusion. Though she made sure not to let the mask slip, the face on the screen only worsened her mood and she gave the slightest tilt of her head to acknowledge one General Thaddeus Ross, even if it would be considered the barest semblance of a greeting one could offer.

The man reminded her much of a cockroach. You think it's gone, you're certain it's not coming back, and then its nasty little feelers touch your fingers when you reach into the sink to wash the dishes. It was probably rude to make the comparison; even the cockroach would have been more welcome than Ross. The too-pleasant smile on his face told her he knew exactly how much she disapproved of his intrusion. It also told her how much he didn't care.

"Miss Romanoff," he greeted just a little too kindly for her liking, "I'm just going skip the pleasantries and cut to the chase here for both our sake's."

Natasha studied him with a look of disinterest as she deemed herself just curious enough about his intentions and responded, "That's probably for the best." Given he once threatened to have her arrested and that, though there was no official proof, he was likely behind Nikolao Constantin's attack on herself and Bruce on the streets of New York, she was far from the General's biggest fan.

"I'm looking for Banner."

Even his surprisingly honest statement didn't ruffle her feathers or goad her out of the seemingly uncaring attitude. She merely gave the tiniest of shrugs.

And Ross' smile lost its shine with her reaction. She watched as he folded his hands atop his desk before he continued to speak, "I have a proposition for you."

"I doubt that I'll find it even remotely interesting but by all means," Natasha told him as she leaned against her dresser and crossed her arms over her chest, "amuse me."

Ross gave her a look that was nothing if not perturbed and it was hard to keep herself from smiling, or it was, until he gave her the proposition, "You're going to bring me Banner."

Natasha felt the frown curl the corners of her lips even if it was only just a fraction, and given Ross' renewed smirk, he could see it too. "There isn't a single thing you could offer to convince me to do that," she informed him.

Her tone should have made it clear, but he didn't seem fazed by her insistence. "Allow me to rephrase that," Ross told her next, "you're going to bring me Banner so that I don't feel the need to make your life a living hell."

"Declined," Natasha told him without batting an eye. He wasn't the first to threaten her and he certainly wouldn't be the last. "Any further offers I can shoot down for you?" she asked with a fake and pleasant smile.

"You really don't want to make this mistake, Miss Romanoff," Ross warned her. She almost wished he had showed up in person so she could show him how far up his ass he could shove that supposed mistake. "If you don't willingly help, you're still useful to me," and now her eyes narrowed of their own accord. "You can get me Banner or I will come after you with everything I have," the warning was obvious, "and then Banner will come to me."

Natasha didn't bother to tell Ross that even if she wanted to bring Bruce to him, there was absolutely no chance of it happening. No, instead she graced him with another microscopic shrug that seemed to bother the man further, "Best of luck to you, General."

"You're going to regret this, Miss Ro—" She cut the video feed off before he could bother going on with another threat. She didn't give it a second thought as she grabbed her keys and left the room.

It wasn't more than two hours before Natasha found herself stepping into the tower and hitting the button in the elevator for Tony's lab brought FRIDAY's attention down on her, "Welcome back, Miss Romanoff. Are you not aware that the boss is currently in the Malibu home with Miss Potts?"

"I am, FRIDAY," Natasha answered as she stepped off the elevator and made her way into the lab, "I'm here for you."

"I see. What can I do to help you?" FRIDAY asked without hesitation.

Natasha took a seat at Tony's desk and glanced at what used to be the de-Hulking cage. "Are my overrides from when Jarvis was active still functioning?" she questioned.

There was clear hesitation before FRIDAY answered, "They are."

"Then I need you to initiate them," she stated next.

"Very well, Miss Romanoff. Override initiated. What else can I do for you?"

Natasha rubbed at her eyes slightly and sighed, "I need you to create a new protocol, FRIDAY."

"You did not need an override for that function, Miss Romanoff. The boss gave you one of the highest clearance accesses to my systems and functions."

She hadn't been aware of that, and though she appreciated the gesture on Tony's part, it didn't entirely matter in this instance. "That's not what the override was for," she stated.

"I see. What name would you like to give this protocol?"

Natasha figured she might as well put some irony to it, "Code: Red."

"Protocol created. What will this protocol consist of?"

And that was where the override came in, "Do you still have all of my old Red Room files in your system?"

"I do."

Natasha nodded as she pulled a few circular plastic clips from the drawer and a few wires. She dragged a metal chair and one of Tony's tiny battery generators into the Hulk cage.

"What are you doing, Miss Romanoff?" came FRIDAY's immediate question.

Natasha set the chair up in the cage and placed the battery generator down beside it as she attached the wires, "I'm going to need you to get the frequency on file that activated my programming."

"I was under the impression that the frequency no longer had any effect."

"It doesn't," Natasha answered as she attached the clips to the wire. When FRIDAY was quiet for a brief moment, Natasha knew her override was the only thing keeping FRIDAY from informing Tony about what was going on in his lab, so she tried not to let what she was about to do bother her.

"This does not seem wise, Miss Romanoff."

No doubt about that. Natasha sat down on the chair and pressed the plastic clips to her arms.

"And that does not seem safe."

"It's not wise and it's not safe," Natasha answered, "hence the override." She pulled the syringe from her pocket and eyed it with disdain. It was as close as she had been able to get from her remaining contacts when it came to Red Room's serum and she glanced over at Tony's favorite robot wearing it's signature dunce cap. The robot whirred and wheeled its way over to her as she flagged it down. She plucked the dunce cap off the top of it, "After I use this, I'm going to need you to turn that generator on every five minutes, for ten seconds, for the next hour. Understood?"

Dum-E's clamp whirred in a little circle before it moved up and down in what she took as acceptance.

"Close the cage, FRIDAY."

"Yes, Miss Romanoff."

"After Dum-E and I begin, I'll need you to play that frequency each time Dum-E turns on the generator. If you go over the hour time frame then there's a chance you activate me, do _not_ go over an hour."

"Understood, Miss Romanoff."

Natasha took a deep breath as she plucked the plastic off the needle of the syringe. "And FRIDAY? If anybody asks, I forgot something in my room."

"Very well."

Plunging that syringe into her own eye was one of the worst things she ever had to do to herself.

And the next thing Natasha knew, she was curled up around something as she fluttered her eyes open. The blanket was familiar and she slowly sat up and looked around to find herself in Bruce's bedroom in the Tower.

She was in his damned bed, curled up around his blanket, and just to frustrate her further she had the ridiculous stuffed Hulk toy that she thought had been left in her own room when she left. She removed herself from the bed in an instant as she ran her fingers through her hair.

"How do you feel, Miss Romanoff?"

"I'm fine, FRIDAY," Natasha answered without a second thought. She grabbed the sheets and blankets, resettling them properly on the bed. "How did I get in here...and when?"

"Once you were done in the lab you came here yourself after going into your own room for five minutes. That was last night."

Natasha sighed at that as she made the bed, then she picked up the Hulk stuffed animal from the floor and looked at it. She supposed after almost six months there was no need to wonder if forgiveness was just around the corner. Besides, if she needed to activate the new protocol like she thought she might, it wouldn't really make much of a difference. She shook her head a little as she tossed HuggaHulk back on the bed and walked out.

* * *

 _Alright the sequel has officially begun. Get ready for a new round of skin tone changing, pants ripping insanity!_

 _Welcome to_ , **In Ruins**!


	2. Chapter 2

So glad to see so many of you again! Thanks for joining me on this next part of Bruce and Natasha's journey!

 **Chapter 1** :

" _When I met you I was half a person,  
With half a heart and half a chance."_

 _Two weeks later._

Natasha was avoiding the public areas of the Avengers' Training Facility like the plague. Someone had the brilliant thought that letting schools have field trips to visit would be good for their image, not to mention good publicity, but she didn't share that opinion. When she wanted her fill of playing with kids, she went to the Barton farm and played with the ones she actually liked, not the children of strangers, children who treated her like she was a hero or an idol. It took years for her to accept being 'Auntie Nat'. 'Black Widow the Hero', however, was much further out of her comfort zone. Steve didn't seem to appreciate her avoidance of the field trips but he also seemed to know that mentioning it was unlikely to yield any promising results. Though, they had lacked in the communication department for the last six months, so she was sure that only added to him leaving well enough alone.

Natasha actually had to do a double take when she walked into the training center and saw a flash of green out of the corner of her eye. On the second look, she saw it was a scrawny little boy, maybe seven years old. His dark hair was shaggy, he had a pair of glasses over big brown eyes, and his face and hands were painted green to go along with his green t-shirt. Her lips curled upward without her consent almost immediately as the boy, clearly in costume as The Hulk, sat on a bench eating an apple. Her first thought was how much Bruce would absolutely hate this and that forced a chuckle from her lips as she approached the boy.

"Hey, Big Guy."

He looked up immediately, clearly stunned to not only be caught, but to be caught by the Black Widow outside of the public areas and his classmates. He at least had the decency to look a little embarrassed when he answered her, though he also looked a little thrilled with the nickname, "U-uh...hi. Y-you're the Black Widow..."

She crouched down in front of him, trying not to laugh at the fact he actually reminded her of a certain scientist. "I am," she assured him with a nod, "and _you_ must be The Incredible Hulk." The comment was effective because he gave her a sheepish little grin. "You know you aren't really supposed to be in here, right Big Guy?" she asked next.

He gave a hesitant little nod, "Y-yeah..."

"You've probably got people worried," Natasha tacked on for good measure, "why'd you run off from your class?"

"They made fun of me..."

She watched the way he looked down at the ground and shuffled his feet in the air where they hung from the bench and gave him a playful bump to the chin, "Well, that's not very nice."

"All the others kids say Hulk isn't one of the heroes, not like Iron Man or Thor or Captain America," he admitted next. "Or you," he tacked on with a sheepish smile.

Natasha gave a small sigh at that before she gave him another smile of her own. "Well, you and I know that's not true, right?" she questioned. She held her hand out to him, "We should get you back."

"Mm'kay..." he answered as he put his green painted hand in hers.

She couldn't resist the smile when he hopped off the bench and walked out of the training room with his hand like a vice grip in her own. "You know, he saved my life quite a few times," she mentioned as they walked down the hall.

"Really?"

"Mmhmm," she answered with a nod.

"Is it true you can change him back into a person?" came the next question.

Natasha couldn't stop herself from hesitating as they rounded a corner and it still took another moment before she could give him an answer, "I used to."

"But not anymore?" he asked next.

"Well, he doesn't fight anymore," she explained in the nicest possible way but her next words left a pang of regret in her heart, "so he doesn't need me anymore."

"Oh. Well...he's still my favorite," the kid told her as they finally found the class with quite a few people, Steve included, clearly searching the area for the boy.

Natasha gave him another smile when he looked up at her and she released his hand as she crouched back down to his level. "Mine too," she assured him as she held out her pinky finger, "but that's our little secret."

His laugh was immediate as he locked his own pinky finger with hers, "Our secret."

She took his hand again as she led him over to the group. "Hey, Rogers," she called out, watching her star-spangled leader who was already looking at them both with a look of relief, "think I found someone that belongs to your group." It seemed to take the entire class of children by surprise as the twenty or so boys and girls looked at their classmate holding hands with her. She gave him another little knuckle bump to the chin and ruffled his hair before sending him off to his classmates, "Thanks for keeping me company, Big Guy."

He grinned in an instant, and given that his entire class surrounded him, she supposed that showing up holding hands with the Black Widow helped them get over his hero costume of choice.

Natasha glanced to her side as Steve stepped up beside her. "We've been looking for that kid for fifteen minutes..." he admitted with a sigh, "where'd you find him?"

"Training room, eating an apple," she answered with a chuckle. "I actually had to do a double take when I walked in and saw a miniature-Hulk," she admitted next and Steve let out the smallest of laughs. She quirked an eyebrow up when he held up his phone and she saw herself crouched down doing a pinky-promise with said mini-Hulk. "Who taught you to use the camera on your phone?" she grumbled out with a roll of her eyes, "I'll break their fingers."

Steve's full laugh was instantaneous and she shook her head a little at his words, "Worth it. And Nat? Thanks for the save."

* * *

Of course, night after night and day after day, Bruce's haunted and betrayed look plagued her. In her dreams, in her wake, it really didn't make much of a difference anymore. It took her two weeks to take everything that had previously been evoked in her, dig as far back into the recesses of her mind as she possibly could, and bury it with the rest of her skeletons. It was the longest it took her to ever hide something away, but after she did, she wasn't sure if she felt relieved or empty. She supposed it didn't really make a difference, not after six months.

Instead she chose to focus on what she still had left. The job.

Even at sundown, when most the Avengers were calming down for the day and beginning to relax, Natasha wasn't, not after that run-in with the little boy from the field trip who had been so much like Bruce. She used a combination of backflips and somersaults as the crimson energy balls flew towards her. Avoidance was the main key because she wasn't exactly equipped to deflect them, hell, nobody was. The thing was, it was near impossible to get a read on where Wanda may shoot next because sometimes Wanda didn't even know. Learning to control her ability with smaller and faster bursts would be more accurate in the long run, but the girl needed to learn it outside of an adrenaline filled battle for the world's continued existence.

Wanda never actually hit Natasha, her volunteer moving target, not once since they had started this weird and amiable training. She tried, but never managed to do it successfully, not until now. The crimson and swirling ball of energy didn't go in the direction Natasha had planned for and she got the full force of it right in the chest. It wasn't enough to send her flying, not with Wanda purposefully holding back on the strength of her attacks, but it did put her flat on her back. Natasha heard the gasp of surprise leave the girl's lips in an instant.

"Are you okay? I never actually imagined I might hit you," Wanda spoke with worry evident in her voice.

Admittedly, Natasha had to blink several times and take a few breaths to get her senses back before she spoke, "Think I bobbed when I should have weaved." The poor girl looked amused by the comment but guilty over the circumstances and Natasha chuckled, "It's fine, really. That's what we're training for, remember? It's a _good_ thing."

That was the more effective comment because this time Wanda smiled, "Right."

"You're doing good on speed," Natasha told her as she sat up and took the hand Wanda offered to help her up, "but you can't rely solely on your powers."

"Steve, Rhodey and Sam have been working on combat with me," came Wanda's reply.

Natasha smiled a little at that, "Bet you never thought three soldiers would train you to fight."

"Certainly not," Wanda admitted with a small laugh.

The thing about Wanda's laughs, even now, was that sadness still lingered in them even during a moment where she was happy. Conversation wasn't something that either of them did well and they tended to avoid it with each other like it was the end of the world. But that lingering sadness and pain was something Natasha understood. The younger woman had lost the only thing she had left in the world. She lost her twin brother, and though she never experienced that exact loss, Natasha did know what it was like to have parts of you ripped away. Unfortunately, Natasha also knew what it was like to have new pieces forced into the empty spaces, and at least Wanda hadn't experienced that hell.

While Steve brought Wanda out of her emotional shell using niceness, Natasha used training her as a way to let her release the pent up feelings. It also seemed to have frustrated Steve to realize that her method was working better than his. That conversation hadn't gone particularly well.

" _Natasha, you can't just let her throw energy wave ball...things...at you to let her get her anger out. She needs to talk about it."_

" _It's called energy projection," she corrected as she quirked an eyebrow up at Steve and shrugged, "and talking is overrated."_

"You _need to talk too," Steve insisted next._

 _Natasha actually let out a disbelieving little chuckle, "Steve, you made me your second in command, not because you trust me more than you trust say, Sam or Rhodey, but because I'm your opposite. When you punch, I kick. When you say talk it out, I say fight it out. If we both had the same methods of tactics and dealing with problems, this wouldn't exactly be productive."_

 _Steve just shook his head a little, "Yeah, I know that, but you can't just settle for that one method, that's exactly the point. I told you this a while ago, before all this happened, you can't keep living like this."_

" _It was working fine then and it's been working just fine for me lately," she told him before she walked away._

That had been four months ago. Natasha finally sucked it up and studied the sad smile on Wanda's face and let the question out, "How are you?"

It clearly took her by surprise because Wanda was looking at her with her lips parted just slightly. "My brother was a part of me," came the honest reply, "I still miss him if that's what you mean."

"You lose a piece of yourself like that and you'll always miss it," Natasha informed her as she inclined her head slightly towards the younger woman. "You can't get it back but you can build around the ruins."

"Speaking from experience?" was Wanda's quick question.

Natasha gave the smallest of shrugs to answer that as she thought about the way to word an actual response.

"Do you have a brother or sister?" Wanda asked before she actually could respond to the previous question.

It was the first time in a long time that a question actually made her stop and think. The truth was, she honestly had no idea if she ever had a sibling, though she supposed it was possible even if she didn't actually remember having one. It had never once crossed her mind, and given Wanda's weary look, she supposed she took too long to answer. "I can't tell you I know what that's like or that I'll ever know what that's like. He was your brother and I've never had that bond," she finally answered with the most truth she could.

Wanda's brow wrinkled as the young woman studied her and gave a reply, "That bond doesn't have to be blood. I see that bond between you and Clint."

Clint. He was the one person that Wanda _did_ talk to more openly. That man always seemed to have something about him that drew it out of people, people much like herself and Wanda, he drew in the strays without effort. Even Pietro had clearly seen the quality that said Clint was worth giving his life for, which likely added to the reason why his sister saw it too. She supposed Wanda might be right. Perhaps she _did_ have that sort of bond with her best friend, she had just never had a word for it before now. Fortunately she was saved from actually needing to confirm or deny what Wanda said when she heard familiar footsteps enter the room. "Tony," she commented before she even turned to look at the billionaire.

"I swear it's like you're Yoda," Tony stated with a roll of his eyes. "The spidey senses be strong in this one, and look at that, you're playing with The Force," he added as he gestured to Wanda. Natasha could see the slight smirk grace Wanda's lips against the poor girl's will. She understood that grief given that she had faced it in the past when she wasn't his biggest fan. It was annoying when Tony Stark could make you want to laugh when you didn't like him, in truth, it usually just made you want to punch him in the face even more. "Anywho, don't mind me. Just came to check out that issue Cap said you guys were having with the proximity alarms."

That made Natasha arch her eyebrow up in an instant, "I didn't know there was an issue."

"Told me it's been down since this morning, probably just a bug in the system though," Tony answered with a shrug, "I'll get it up to par."

"Could Vision not have done that?" Wanda questioned.

"Sure he could," Tony answered, "but then what excuse would I have to come and harass my favorite of all assassins? That and I'm incredibly bored with Pepper in Malibu for a few more weeks."

And Natasha arched the other eyebrow up so that they were both raised, "I'm not a stand-in for your fiancée, Tony."

"Future fiancée. Now suck it up, Red. We have a dinner date."

It forced a smile from her as she rolled her eyes, "No, we don't."

"We do now so wear something nice."

Natasha snickered as he left as quickly as he came in, not giving her a chance to tell him no. She couldn't remember when she had accepted that Tony had asserted himself into her inner circle of friends, but at some point she had, and she was actually grateful for it these days. She looked over at Wanda and it was clear that something was bothering her but the question Wanda asked proved it, "You felt rattled when he said the proximity alarms were down...why?"

"You know I hate when you do that, but to answer, no reason in particular," Natasha assured her. She hadn't even realized that she had given herself away on that, she usually guarded herself better in Wanda's presence. "I just prefer that defense systems run properly."

"It wasn't intentional, it was just a _very_ strong feeling you gave off," Wanda admitted, and while her eyes narrowed slightly with clear uncertainty over the answer she received, she did seem to decide to let it go, "But very well...if you say so."

Natasha wasn't entirely sure what made her do it, but the question left her lips of their own volition, "You like movies, Wanda?"

The confusion that masked Wanda's face was immediate, and if it weren't so depressing that having asked such a simple question could evoke that expression, it might have actually been funny. Natasha knew for a fact it only confused her because they didn't interact much beyond training. It was her own fault and not Wanda's. "I don't watch very many but I do love them," came the answer after the confusion and surprise faded slightly.

"Me either," Natasha admitted, "I do like the older ones but that could just be because they're almost the only ones I've watched." Wanda still looked mildly confused so Natasha explained the sudden question reflected in her eyes, "somebody who was a much better friend to me than I was to them once told me that they helped when things were...rough."

Wanda seemed to understand it was Natasha's version of a friendly gesture, "Would you like to watch a movie?"

Natasha was pretty sure _she_ was supposed to ask the question, but she supposed it didn't matter that Wanda beat her to it, "Sure."

"Do you have a favorite?" Wanda questioned as they walked out of the training room and headed towards the lounge that had been so carefully crafted by Tony. The man spared no expense. It had a mini-bar, a too large TV, a pool table, and nearly anything else that one might want to do for fun and relaxation. It was also sorely underused on most days.

"Casablanca," Natasha answered without missing a beat. It also sent an annoyingly sad flutter through her before she could squelch it. Something told her that Wanda sensed it because the young woman was looking at her in curiosity as she dug that bothersome reaction as far back into her mind as she could. "But like I said, I haven't watched many either, so I'll let you pick," she added next, "I make terrible movie choices."

It eased Wanda's uneasiness as the girl laughed, "No promises that my choice will be any better."

Natasha smirked in an instant, "I'm just daring enough that I'm willing to take my chances."

"You may regret it," Wanda warned with a lighthearted twinkle in her eyes. It seemed Steve had been right all along. Normal people, though Wanda wasn't _exactly_ normal, they needed more than to just get their problems out through physical exertion. Wanda needed a friend and the truth was, maybe she wasn't the only one, Natasha was beginning to think she could use one as well.

"Well, it certainly won't manage to rank at the top of the list for things I regret," Natasha replied with a shrug, "so do your worst, Maximoff."

Wanda's laugh came easily and Natasha found herself smiling in response as they entered the lounge. It seemed they had garnered the attention of Sam and Rhodey at the pool table, neither of whom were likely used to seeing either of the women laugh or smile, and especially not at the same exact time. They probably thought the end of the world was coming. It seemed this was one day where the lounge _wasn't_ underused and, in fact, was instead now filled with four of the six team members.

"Ladies," Sam greeted.

Natasha could see the the sparkle of amusement slowly dim from Wanda's eyes and she was determined to at least let it stay there a little longer. "Wilson," she acknowledged in return, "you actually know how to shoot pool or do you just strut around the table with the stick and try to look pretty?" It was effective. Wanda looked an equal amount of shocked and entertained when Sam gave a cheery grin and Rhodey released a laugh.

"Ohhh...ohh, I see how it is," Sam responded with a laugh and a shrug as he leaned an arm on the pool table and looked to Rhodey, "she's jealous because strutting, kicking ass and looking pretty is her job when playing pool."

It was hard not to laugh at Sam's off-handed compliment, even harder when Rhodey commented on it in return, "Well, no offense Wilson, but Romanoff does _all three_ of those better than you do."

Wanda's laugh was quick and easy and even Natasha couldn't help but release a chuckle as she went around the mini-bar and pulled out a bottle of vodka. She removed the cap and took a swig before handing it to Wanda and the young woman looked a little uncertain as she took the bottle in her hands. A moment later Natasha chuckled before she pulled out a glass, tossed in a little ice, then pushed it across the bar to the young woman.

"On the rocks is much better, I think," Wanda stated as she poured the vodka into the glass with appreciation.

"All a matter of preference," Natasha agreed with a shrug, "never much made a difference to me."

Sam asked the question that was clearly on all of their minds, "Tell me something, if you've never gotten drunk off that then why the hell do you torture yourself by drinking it?"

"I like the burn," Natasha told him. She gave him a tiny little smirk as she took another swig from the bottle. The bright side about the entire team being aware of her own serum was that nobody bothered to question how much she drank anymore. Now they just questioned why she bothered to drink at all.

"You are by far the strangest woman I've ever met," Sam admitted with a shake of his head, "and I once went home with a woman who turned out to have fifteen ferrets, so that's really saying something."

Wanda's eyebrow raised immediately, "You have strange taste when it comes to women. Perhaps it's you who are strange and not the women."

Natasha snickered when Rhodey and Sam belted out laughs in response and she took a seat next to Wanda and refilled her emptying glass with vodka. At this point they were probably skipping the movie with the others being in the lounge, so Natasha took a third swig as she saluted Sam with the bottle, "I'm actually offended that you find me stranger than the ferret lady, but then again, I have two pet birds. _..Falcon."_

Rhodey's laugh was immediate, Wanda was sipping her vodka with a smirk, and Sam merely groaned as he rested his forehead atop his arm on the pool table.

Sam picked his head back up and looked between them, "Is this a Russian thing? The vodka straight up?"

Natasha quirked an eyebrow up in an instant and noted that Wanda had much the same reaction. It was the brunette who answered first, "I'm Sokovian."

"Know how you tell the difference between a Russian and a Sokovian?" Natasha questioned and watched as both men looked in her direction with interest. "Sokovians need a glass and ice, and unless Russians are trying to act like ladies, we just need the bottle," she informed them as she held said bottle up to them before taking another sip.

Wanda was grinning into her glass as she took another sip.

"Ohh, so we aren't good enough to act ladylike around..." Sam mumbled out with clear amusement.

"You're ladylike enough for all of us, Wilson," Rhodey called out as he sipped his beer.

Natasha felt her lips curl upward even further at the remark as she leaned on the bar and eyed Sam with a studious gaze. "He's right," she agreed and watched Sam groan at the comment. "There's just something about _all of this_ ," she stated as she swirled her hand over her face, "that just makes you look pretty."

"Only when he shaves the stash," Wanda stated as she placed her index finger just under her nose and above her upper lip to mock a mustache, "otherwise he's a very butch sort of pretty."

It came so out of the blue that Natasha actually choked a little as she took a sip of vodka, though she still got the liquid down her throat without too much effort, and it seemed without anyone else noticing the slip up. Or they just weren't willing to comment on it. It wasn't often she realized that Wanda actually had a sense of humor but she could certainly learn to appreciate it.

"Heard you finally made an appearance for one of those school field trips," Rhodey mentioned next, "Cap said the kids really liked seeing you."

That hurt and regret filled her in an instant when she thought of the little boy who had been so remarkably Bruce-like and she could see Wanda's eyes shift from lighthearted to sad. It seemed _that_ feeling must have been a strong one too and she gave a small nod to Rhodey, "Mmm. Fun as that was, not going to happen again." It seemed to kill the entire conversation in an instant and silence ensued throughout the room for a few awkward seconds before Natasha spun the cap back onto the bottle of vodka. "How about a raincheck on the movie?" she questioned to Wanda, "I think I'm going to turn in early."

Not one of them made a comment on her leaving as she walked out but she paused in the doorway when Tony was in her path. His comment was nothing if not expected, "Turn into what, a pumpkin? It's not even close to midnight, you've got time." She arched an eyebrow up in warning but he still didn't budge. Instead he locked his arm with hers and led her down the hall in the opposite direction of her room.

"What the hell are you doing, Tony?" she questioned.

"I told you, we have a dinner date."

"And I told you no. I thought you were dealing with the alarms, done already?"

Tony actually paused in their trek down the hall and she saw how his face studied her. "I'm running a system analyses. I told you, it's probably just a bug, why does that have you so bent out of shape?" he asked pointedly. She supposed now was the time to stop hiding Ross' threat from everyone. She didn't imagine he was insane enough to actually attack the facility of the Avengers', but with the alarms down, it was a chance she was no longer willing to take. It was always one thing if it was just her own life at stake, it was another entirely to put so many other peoples' at stake. "Natasha, what aren't you telling me?"

She glanced out the large array of windows in the long hallway that looked out into the darkened sky as she ran her hands over her face and rubbed at her eyes. "How sure are you it's a bug in the system? Is there a chance somebody turned it off?"

Tony's eyes narrowed in response to the question but he seemed to know she was being serious. "Only way they turn it off is from inside the control room. I didn't give the facility outside systems access," he answered. "Natasha, are you telling me you think someone inside did this?" he asked next.

Natasha took a weary and deep breath before she shook her head, "No...I don't know that."

"What has you so worried?"

"Two weeks ago, Ross called me," she admitted as she leaned against the glass. "I...politely declined an offer he made me, which resulted in him saying he would come after me with everything he had," she explained.

Tony's expression was nothing if not frustrated and she watched as he removed his sunglasses and rubbed at his eyes much the same way she had done moments ago. "Declined _what_ offer, exactly?" came the question.

Natasha folded her arms across her chest and shook her head a little, "Does it really matter?"

"He wanted Bruce, didn't he?"

"Like I said...does it really matter?" she asked again with a shake of her head. "Bruce isn't coming back, and this is _my_ problem," she reminded, "I can deal with it."

Tony's eyes narrowed, "It's not only your problem, not when you're on a team."

She took another deep breath before she commented on that, "I won't be on the team. I'm leaving."

That seemed to get his attention because he looked less annoyed and more worried. "Natasha, I agree with what you've obviously thought for these last two weeks, that Ross can't possibly be nuts enough to attack this place...but that means you don't leave. You _stay._ You tell the damn team what's going on! _"_ Tony was pissed, plain and simple, and she didn't entirely blame him.

She had planned on being gone well over a week ago, but setting up a safe house these days wasn't as easy as it used to be, it wasn't as easy as when she was unknown to the world. He was right that she thought Ross wouldn't be crazy enough to attack her at the Avengers' facility but that wasn't an excuse. Not really. And she found out the hard way that they were _both_ wrong in that very instant.

Natasha only barely heard the sound of something that tapped the glass behind her, and she almost didn't bother to give it a second thought, but she shifted her eyes up anyways. A tiny black circular device was in the upper corner of the window and she narrowed her eyes in an instant. She felt the glass pulsing against her back and quickly moved from her position of leaning on the window and watched as Tony's eyes followed her own.

"What the hell is that?" came his immediate question, and it was a damn good one, right up until the glass shattered. She gripped his arm the moment it happened and pulled him away from the shards that flew in at them, but even above the noise of window being demolished, Natasha could hear the sound of a gunshot.

"Down! Get down!" she growled out quickly, shoving Tony down beneath her. She felt the bullet graze her skin at her ribs and the burning sensation it left behind, but it also wasn't anything to worry over, not when no further shots ensued. She kept his arm in a vice grip between her fingers as she pulled him to his feet while her other arm kept him hunched down. "Go! Go! Run!" she yelled at him as both their feet moved quickly through the hallway. She saw those same black circular devices hitting each window ahead of them and she pushed Tony's head to look down at the floor as they ran. "Don't look up! Don't stop!"

Even as their feet padded as fast down the hallway as possible the windows shattered and the glass sprayed at them until she dove through the doorway and landed half on top of the billionaire on the other side. Tony was taking shaky breaths beneath her but from what she could tell it was merely from the nerves since she couldn't see any injuries. His statement as they took a few seconds to breathe told her he was his normal fine self, "I take it back...he's nuts enough!" His breaths evened out easily enough and then he sounded less sarcastic with his next words, "And...thanks for uh, you know, all that."

That probably would've been at least a slightly amusing statement if the windows in their newest hall hadn't blown out a moment later and men in black combat gear didn't rappel in with their guns aimed towards them. Dozens of bullets sprayed over their heads and she pushed Tony's head down under her arms in an instant as she ducked her own down. Another sting pierced the skin of her upper arm and she gritted her teeth as she kept Tony covered beneath her.

It only lasted seconds before she heard one of them men yelling over the noise, "Stop shooting, you idiots! He needs her alive!"

Natasha heard the footsteps behind her, but through the ringing in her ears, she couldn't be sure if they were ones she recognized. She lifted her head until Wanda's voice told her to do otherwise, "Stay down!" She watched the wave of red energy fly over her own and Tony's heads and each of the half dozen men were sent careening back out the windows they entered from.

" _We need her alive!"  
"Find Romanoff!"  
"The others don't matter!"_

More voices came from the hallway herself and Tony had initially been attacked in and she saw Wanda turn towards the words with a frown. For half a second Natasha felt her vision go into a haze, and for another moment, an overwhelming sense of nausea took over.

"Natasha!" Tony's voice hissed out her name and she shook off the nausea as he yanked her to her feet, "We gotta move..."

The door that she and Tony came through flew open, but just as Wanda raised her hands to attack, Natasha watched the familiar red, white and blue shield slam into one man, bounce into a rafter on the side, and continuously knock back and forth like the ball in a pinball machine. Rafter, intruder, rafter, intruder.

"Who the hell are they?" came Steve's immediate question as he stepped up beside Wanda and caught the shield that flew back to him. She half expected Tony to make a comment about watching his language but apparently even the billionaire knew now wasn't the right time.

"They're after Natasha," Wanda answered in an instant.

She felt Steve's eyes shift to her within a second of the statement and then Tony finished Wanda's statement with his own, "It's Ross. He's after Natasha to get to Bruce."

"You knew?" and Steve's question was directed at her with obvious frustration, but a burning sensation rippled through her like a shockwave before she could reply, and this time she _did_ vomit. "Did she get shot?" Steve asked, not caring that his previous question wasn't answered.

"No, she—" Natasha felt Tony's hand touch her side as he kept her on her feet and his words paused in an instant as his eyes traveled down to his hand. "You got shot..." his words came out in mumbled disbelief.

She shook her head a little, "Just a graze..."

"We need to look at it, but somewhere else, preferably with no windows," Steve ordered them, "let's move." Her vision blurred in and out continuously as Tony pulled her along and she noted that Steve stayed ahead of them both while Wanda kept behind them. "Sam, Rhodey, Vision, what are we lookin' at outside?"

"Looks like they're retreating, Cap," Sam responded, "Got several bogeys running back into the woods, want us to give chase?"

She watched Steve turn and look back at her for a moment before he spoke again, "No, I want all eyes outside watching the perimeter, the attackers are after Romanoff. Retreating might only be a distraction."

"Copy that."

The burning seared through her side again without warning, her footsteps faltered, and she felt Tony's grip tighten around her in an instant to keep her on her feet. "It's barely even bleeding, she should be fine," she heard the billionaire tell Steve and Wanda, "and this isn't fine!"

"C'mon," Steve stated, shoving the door to the training room open and ushering them in. "Sit down, Nat," he ordered next and she really wanted to tell him she was fine. That idea ended the second Tony's hand pressed a little harder onto her side and it felt like pure agony as the moan left her lips. Both men pulled her down to the floor and Steve's fingers lifted her shirt up over where she was bleeding.

"What the hell is that?" Tony's question came in an instant and she felt her eyes drift to look at what he saw. "Last time I saw skin have _that_ look, it was me, and I was dying," Tony informed her with worry evident in his voice.

She barely managed to look at the blackish-gray veins spiking out from the wound just a little bit, not without throwing up, and she laid back down within seconds of the effort. "Bullet must've been laced with something. But Ross need me alive...means it must be temporary..." she reminded him.

"Yeah, or maybe he changed his mind," Tony added for good measure, "maybe he knows Bruce is gone."

"Doubt he'd just go and give up two weeks after making the threats..." she pointed out, and she knew he knew that, especially given the orders Ross' men were yelling out.

Her entire body burned. Her skin felt like it was on fire. Her breathing had become heavy and the more air she tried to suck in, the harder it became to fill her lungs, and her breaths quickly shifted into painful and useless gasps. "Nat, Nat calm down, you need to breathe..." Steve's words barely registered with her. "Tony...you really think this was Ross?" came the whispered question.

"Has to be," Tony answered quickly, "she was literally _just_ telling me about his threat when these guys attacked...and all the intruders kept saying that they needed to take her in alive..."

"Then she needs to go somewhere that Ross isn't going to find her. You come here in your jet?" Steve's question was quick.

"Yeah..."

"Go start it," Steve ordered next, "I want you to get her out of here. Bring her somewhere, anywhere. Ross wants Banner and I think we all know that won't lead to anything good, not if it's anything like last time." And she knew last time well. Last time an abomination was born as a result of Ross' interest in Bruce. "We can try and deal with Ross on our end."

Natasha groaned as the pain became near unbearable, a limit she never imagined she could actually reach, and she curled in on herself on instinct. "Natasha?" it was Tony's voice as his hand grasped her shoulder.

"Stark, _start_ the jet. We'll get her to you!"

"He's right..." she mumbled out, "Steve's right...Ross gets me and we both know Bruce _will_ come back...and it can't be like that. That can't be the reason he comes back..." she groaned again as Wanda came over with a pressure bandage and pushed it against the wound on her side before she finally convinced Tony to leave and get the jet ready, "Tony, we both know that Bruce has been through enough...I need to disappear before this gets out of hand, like I planned..."

She kept having to force deep breaths out through the entire statement but it worked. "Alright, alright..." he muttered out quickly. It seemed that appealing to his love for his best friend was the best option she could have come up with because he stood up and edged out the door after looking in both directions out it.

Natasha glanced between Wanda's worried gaze and Steve's frustrated and equally worried expression. She decided to speak before Steve could, "I know...I should have told you."

Steve released a little sigh as he glanced at pressure bandage stuck to her side and then the back of his hand pressed to her forehead. "You should have, but I guess I get it," he assured her, though she could tell he hadn't wanted to, "you were always planning to run, weren't you?"

"Yeah."

He gave a brief nod in response. "You're burning up. Nat, how sure are you that this isn't fatal?" he asked with an almost overwhelming amount of concern.

She gave a meager shrug and grimaced at another upsurge of pain when it rushed through her entire body. "I'm not. I don't even know what it is...but if Ross wants me alive then—"

"Then it's a fair assumption he wouldn't risk using something that would kill you..." Steve mumbled as he finished it for her.

"Well, if it was meant to simply disarm her, weaken her..." Wanda interrupted as she tied another a bandage around whatever wound on her arm she had felt the sting from earlier, "he did a damned good job...the pain she's feeling is immense."

"Still hate when you do that..." and at Wanda's half chuckle, Natasha took a deep breath and answered, "definitely the worst I've ever felt though..." She could see the way that bothered Steve. He knew some of her past. He knew she was Enhanced. He _knew_ she's had worse injuries, been tortured in unimaginable ways, and continued to keep on fighting; and yet a gunshot that had _grazed_ her had her in agonizing discomfort.

It was in that moment that the lights flickered before the power died completely and blanketed them in darkness. She could see the way Steve's form went on alert and Wanda's head whipped around and looked in all directions. Only a second later she saw Steve's head turn in the direction of the door and he pressed his index finger to his lips to tell them to be quiet. It was bad timing all around when the pain rippled from her side and coursed through her entire body like wave after wave slamming onto the beach. Steve's eyes were watching her, clearly waiting for some noise she might emit that would give them away, and it took every ounce of willpower to hold it all in. She could feel the sweat beading on her forehead and even Natasha was beginning to question how 'non-fatal' her condition was in that moment.

And this time even she could hear the footsteps as they came closer to the door. Several pairs of feet, all in combat boots, but Steve's head turned behind them to the opposite entrances to the training room. He held up six fingers to herself and Wanda as he pointed towards the rear side door, then another six for the side entrance opposite that one. She held up six of her own as she pointed towards the entrance they had come in at.

It seemed that Steve had been right about the men Sam had seen retreating. They were a false front. The real threat was already _inside_ and the threat knew where they were. She watched Steve speak low into the comm on his wrist as he raised it to his lips, "Guys...we've got eighteen attackers closing in on our position in the training room."

"On our way, Cap."

The intruders were waiting at each set of doors, though waiting for what, she couldn't be certain. Then one of their voices rang out, "Captain Rogers! Surrender Natasha Romanoff to us now or we're authorized to use deadly force!"

Natasha groaned a little as she sat up and she could feel Wanda's hand on her back in support. "Really? They're actually suggesting that Captain freakin' America just hand someone over to them?" she groaned out, "boy, they don't know you very well, Rogers. You wouldn't even if I asked you to do it..." She could see Steve fighting back a smirk and it seemed the men outside were done waiting. Each door was kicked open at the same time. Three different entry points. Steve turned towards the back entrances in an instant and ran towards them as Wanda raised her hands and sent a wave of red energy into the six men who burst through the front. Natasha gripped her arm and nodded her head towards Steve, "Help him back there. I got this..."

Wanda had that look of uncertainty, but also a look that said she knew it was an order, and after a moment the younger woman took off towards the second rear entrance. Natasha pulled herself up against the wall just to the side of the front entrance, ignoring the continuous ripples of pain, and yanking the knife from her boot. She heard the first of the men getting to their feet as he made his way back into the training room. She reached her empty hand out, yanked him to the side where she stood, and slammed the hilt of the knife into his nose. He never got a chance for a rebuttal when she smacked the back of his head into the wall and dropped his unconscious body to the floor in a heap.

Two more entered the door and she had to get more creative. She got her arm around the neck of the man closest to her, and against every ache and pain of her body's disapproval, she used him to swing her body up and get her thighs around the neck of the second man. Both of them were dragged with her to the floor from the sheer surprise of her attack and she knocked out the first when he went face first into the ground. The second guy was struggling to get air through the vice grip of her legs, and to be honest, breathing wasn't exactly a thing she was doing very well either.

Wanda's gasp had her face whipping towards the back of the room and Natasha threw the knife on instinct alone. Just as a rear intruder put the gun in Wanda's face, having gotten through her bombardment of energy projection, the knife embedded in his temple before his finger could pull the trigger. She supposed it was quid pro quo when their resident witch turned to her in surprised before she returned the favor by hitting the fourth man who entered Natasha's own entryway with a ball of red energy, using enough speed and accuracy to make Natasha at least a little proud. Fortunately, she didn't have to worry about the last two men when Rhodey came flying through her door, one of them in each hand, and dropped them unconscious on the floor.

Natasha released her choke hold on the man she had in her grip once he was out cold and took a few shaky breaths, but getting to her feet felt near impossible, and instead she leaned her back against the wall. Vision was the next one one into the training room and he landed beside her in an instant. He didn't hesitate before speaking, "Mr. Stark requests that I bring Miss Romanoff to his jet now and he will take her to safety," Vision informed them next, "we simply must keep the enemy occupied in the meantime."

"Do it," Steve's reply came in less than a second.

Suddenly her arm was pulled over Vision's shoulders as the android easily lifted her up into his arms. As if whatever the bullet had been laced with hadn't already made it hard to breathe, Vision's take off into flight certainly didn't help. Thankfully it didn't take very long before Vision flew through the open door of the jet and he laid her down on the couch in the back.

Natasha could make out Tony's voice and words the second she could breathe again, "You sure you want me to bring her to you?" There were words spoken back, but through the haze of whatever was in her system, she couldn't make out the voice or words. Even back in the training room her fighting had been a fraction of its usual skill, and she knew she was only getting worse. Tony's voice came out clear again, "Alright. It'll be late when we get there...but we'll see you in five hours, give or take." Who the hell was he talking to? She didn't have the energy to ask as the edges of her vision blackened and then Tony's voice rang out closer to her, "FRIDAY, take off."

"Yes, boss."

She saw Vision fly out the closing door of the jet and then Tony's face appeared in her foggy line of sight. "FRIDAY, can we get an analyses on what's in her system?"

"I've already been attempting it, but so far, it matches nothing currently known in my systems."

The back of Tony's hand felt like cold relief as he pressed it over her forehead and she felt her eyes slowly drifting closed. "Red, I swear if you kick the bucket on me, I'll find a way to bring you back so I can kick your ass."

"Like to...see you try that," she grumbled out. It was effective enough to make him chuckle until the moan left her lips the second his hand shifted from her forehead and moved to peel the pressure bandage off of her side.

And now she couldn't make out Tony's face at all with how far closed her eyes had finally drooped. She didn't even feel it when Tony started stitching the bullet wound in her side, not through the fire that she already felt was burning through her on the inside. "Natasha? You still with me?" she heard him ask. She wasn't even sure if she gave a real response or just ignored him completely. That was the last thing she remembered hearing at all.

* * *

 **See you ladies and gents soon for the next chapter!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 2** :

" _Damaged people are dangerous,  
Because they know they can survive."_

The moment Natasha stopped answering him and her eyes closed, her breathing became more and more shallow, and Tony felt the anxiety enveloping him like a sickness. "Natasha," he called her name in an instant as he stopped stitching the bullet graze on her waist. He tossed the needle and thread into the first aid kit and pressed his index and middle fingers to the pulse on her neck when he couldn't hear or see her taking any further breaths.

Nothing.

"Dammit, Nat, don't do this..." he grumbled out before he pressed his hands to her sternum and pushed heavily several times. "C'mon, c'mon..." he mumbled in frustration as he pushed down three more times before she choked out a breath. Her eyes never opened but a pained moan left her lips following that first breath and then he heard a few more even breaths leave her lips as her chest began to rise and fall again unsteadily.

"Well done, boss."

Tony rubbed at his eyes in an instant before he blew out a nervous breath and sat down beside the couch without responding to FRIDAY's words of praise. He had to remind himself to breathe now that Natasha was breathing again, but truthfully, all he wanted to do was vomit. He gave himself another thirty seconds to calm down before he took another look at the half complete stitch job along Natasha's side and he pressed his fingers over top of the blackish-gray lines that protruded a little higher than they had before. An hour since she had received the wound and they had gone from being microscopic to splintering out nearly an inch from the graze.

It had been worrisome enough _before_ she had stopped breathing on him and now he felt himself becoming a bundle of nerves as the sweat continued to bead from her forehead all over again. He carefully picked the needle and thread back up, double checked that she was still breathing, then went to work again as he threaded the needed in and out through the skin. The more he worked, the more she began to sweat, and the agonizing noises that left her lips gave him chills. He never knew her to outwardly show any signs of pain if she could help it, emotional or physical, and at the very least it was daunting when she did show it.

Tony was just glad when he finally finished and he tossed the needle back into the first aid kit, patted the wound down to be semi-cleaner, then taped a new bandage over her side before he tugged her shirt back down. At least once he stopped his work she stopped squirming and moaning in pain because he wasn't sure how much longer he could have handled that without losing his mind. He leaned back against the couch where she was laying, closed his eyes, and took a few more deep breaths to calm his nerves. Put him up against aliens or robots hellbent on taking over or destroying the planet and _that_ he could handle. Leave him on a jet with an dying assassin that had somehow become one of his most trusted friends and he was a nervous wreck in undiscovered territory.

There was only one way Ross would even know about the relationship that had grown between Natasha and Bruce. All of it happened all in the very same day; when Nikolao Constantin had infiltrated the tower and planted bugs throughout it. It was the very same night Bruce had performed his infamous kiss and run on Natasha. And hell, millions of people had seen the phone-recorded very first lullaby Natasha had pulled off in the streets of New York _before_ their relationship had become anything of the sort. While the chances were that Ross' attack on Natasha probably couldn't have been avoided because of those instances, a lot of other things probably could have if Tony had just kept his nose out of their business, but instead he kept pushing them to get closer. That being said, he had been a little impressed when he blew up their not-so-subtle spot to Thor just before Ultron's attack, and while Bruce had been mortified, Natasha hadn't even batted an eye. In fact, it made him wonder just which one of them had been less ready to actually move the relationship forward. He had thought it was Natasha, but now that he thought more on it, he had a feeling he was wrong.

He had liked seeing his best friend smile more. He definitely liked seeing him laugh more openly. But the most impressive thing had been walking in the moment Bruce had told Natasha she was 'breathtaking' and seeing that stunned and baffled expression on her face. And Natasha? She had become less closed off around everyone with Bruce's presence in her life. Hell, she had begun to laugh and smile just as much as Bruce had. It was like his awkward friend had managed to at least take one piece that was missing from the puzzle that was Natasha Romanoff and put it back into place. He had watched Bruce fall hopelessly in love with the redheaded assassin, though he wasn't sure his friend ever actually admitted it to her, and he had watched as Natasha slowly built on feelings that the poor woman didn't even know how to begin to express or understand.

Tony opened his eyes and glanced back down at his watch, noting he had been sitting next to the couch for near another hour already, and he sincerely hated being left with his own thoughts for so much time. Then he heard something that made him sit up straighter on full alert. Once again those short and pained gasps left Natasha's lips for just a few seconds before they stopped altogether, and then, her chest stopped rising. He could hear his heart pounding as he fully turned around and double-checked her pulse.

She had stopped breathing again and immediately he pressed both hands back down on her sternum and pushed down again and again.

Nothing.

He pushed again. And again. And again.

No breath ever came from her and her skin had already begun to take on a pallor that told him blood had stopped flowing. Even her lips twinged just slightly blue and he tilted her head back in an instant, parting her lips before breathing into her mouth. He shifted his hands back into place, pushing down, down, down.

"Natasha, dammit! C'mon!"

He breathed into bluish lips again and he was forced to do the entire process over. Push the air out. Breathe the air in. Push the air out. Breath the air in. It felt like ages had gone by with absolutely no results.

"Boss, Miss Romanoff has not breathed on her own in almost ten minutes..."

"I don't give a damn."

"You're risking bringing her back with impaired brain function if much more time passes."

Tony couldn't quite fathom that in Natasha. He couldn't imagine himself being the cause of it. He also couldn't imagine explaining to the Bartons why she was dead, or to the Avengers, or to Bruce; if he ever actually saw him again. She had saved his life and he would be damned if he didn't do the same. "FRIDAY," he stated as he began compressions again, "shut the hell up."

Thankfully, FRIDAY listened to the order as he forced more air into her lungs. Just as he moved to start more compressions, she sucked in the largest gasp of a breath he had ever heard. Again her eyes remained closed and he placed a hand on her forehead; her skin was cold and clammy under the sweat and Tony listened to the sounds of the shaky breaths she continued to release.

"I swear...you better better not die again and you _better_ still be the biggest smartass in the history of assassins, next to Barton anyways..." he warned her unconscious frame. It wasn't as though she could actually hear the warning but at least her skin no longer looked ashen and her lips no longer looked sickly. Added to that, the extreme heat of the fever didn't come back and after a few more minutes even her breathing sounded completely normal. "FRIDAY?"

"She seems much better, boss. Miss Romanoff's vitals have all evened out within normal parameters and her temperature has returned well within the normal limits. It would appear that the worst of whatever she had in her system is over. Unfortunately we won't know her brain's functionality until she awakens, but given her enhancements, I imagine she will be fine."

Small favors, Tony supposed as he breathed a sigh of relief and sat back down next to the couch. She had used herself as practically a human shield back at the training facility and if she had died on him now, he wasn't sure he would have been able to live with that. Then again...if he brought her back and she was only half of herself, she would probably never forgive him, because even half of Natasha was still an utterly terrifying thought.

* * *

Opening her eyes reminded Natasha a lot like emerging out from inside a dense fog. For a second all she could make out was a basic outline of her surroundings, then slowly, everything came into focus. The couch she was laying on was the same she remembered Vision putting her on and she glanced around before her eyes landed on Tony on the floor next to her.

"You scared the hell out of me," Tony told her the second he noticed her eyes on him, "you actually stopped breathing. Twice." She felt fine other than an aching chest, though from the haggard look on Tony's face as he rubbed disparagingly at his face, it was clear she had done more than scare him, she had absolutely terrified the man. "Bright side is that your fever broke after the second time," he informed her next, "how do you feel?"

Natasha took a few steady breaths before she actually sat up. No mind numbing pain. No issues breathing. No burning sensation pulsating through her body. Just the ache of fresh stitches and a rather annoying twinge of discomfort from whatever wound lay under the bandage on her arm. "Surprisingly okay..." she admitted. She studied Tony's face further and the lack of humor in his expression and comments just didn't suit him. "You've just been sitting there this whole time?" she dared to ask.

"You died. _Twice_ ," Tony reminded her before he defiantly stated, "but I will deny that I sat here like a stooge with every fiber of my being if you ever tell anyone."

It made her smile at least a little to receive a more humorous response again. "You saved my life..." she commented gratefully.

"Consider it me returning the favor."

"Thank you..." she tacked on for good measure.

He gained a ridiculously modest expression that, again, just didn't suit him. "Anytime..." came his reassuring reply.

Natasha looked around the jet again as she went for a change of topic to ease the discomfort between them, "Where are we going, Tony?"

"I didn't have a whole lot of choices here, Red," Tony reminded her. "Ross sent more than two dozen men into the base for the Avengers just to capture _you_ ,so we're going to the only safe place I could think to bring you that's off the grid and Barton didn't even hesitate when I called. He said to bring you and Laura said no ifs ands or buts."

She didn't doubt either of those comments for a moment but neither one made her feel any better. "And like you said...Ross sent more than two dozen men for me even when I was with the Avengers. I can't go there, I can't risk their lives because eventually he'll find me."

"Natasha..."

"They're all I have," she reminded him, and just for good measure she asked a single question, "would you want to lead Ross and his black ops army to Pepper?"

She could see the way it frustrated him as he rubbed at his face again. "FRIDAY, change course. Just—just go in another direction until we figure something else out."

"Understood, boss."

Natasha gave him the barest of smiles but she was grateful that he didn't put up a fight on the matter. "We both know that if we had made it there, and then I packed up and left, Clint would have come with me. He's out of the game and he needs to stay out of it. He has far too much to live for."

"And you don't?" Tony questioned her with a sigh.

She gave some semblance of a shrug in response as she shook her head. "I don't have _anything_ left besides them," she reminded him, "I'd rather not have them at all then put them in danger."

She knew that the look he gave her was telling her she was wrong. His words only added to his expression, "That's not true. You've got the team. And me."

"And I could have gotten the team killed. _You_ almost got killed."

"And _you_ did die, and all because for six months you've been shoving every single thing as far down as humanly possible, farther down than I actually thought was humanly possible, and because you're trying to deal with everything on your own," Tony reminded her, "Natasha, everything went to hell six months ago, and I get it I really do, but you aren't the only one who lost him!"

"I know that."

Tony frowned a little, and for the first time, he asked the question she knew had been on his mind the entire time, "Why _did_ you push him? I mean, we definitely needed him, but...what made you do it?"

Natasha released a tiny breath as she debated how to answer him or even if she should answer. The lengths he was going to right now to get her somewhere safe and the lengths he had clearly gone to to make sure she stayed alive were the only things that made her respond with honesty, "I kept telling myself that I needed to finish the job if I wanted to move on but the truth was, I wasn't even sure if I ever could, not at the time." She sighed as she leaned her head back on the couch and stared up at the roof of the jet before she spoke again, "I just knew that if I left, if Bruce left, neither of us would have been able to live with that." She could feel Tony's eyes on her, probably trying to discern if she meant her words, and she looked back at him. "Funny thing is, I might not have known then if I meant it when I told him I would run with him, but now I know I could have. I would have run with him after it was all done."

He looked downright disheartened by her words, "You knew what he would do if you pushed him though?"

"I had a pretty good idea that would be the end of it."

"And you did it anyways..."

"Like I said," she reminded him, "neither of us would have been able to live with ourselves if we didn't fight, and the truth is that when Ultron had me I let him get in my head, and I started to doubt myself."

She could see the uneasy look on his face before he asked, "What exactly did Ultron say to you?"

Natasha wasn't sure why she answered him again. She wasn't sure why she _wanted_ to answer him. Maybe she just needed to get it out for the first time in six months. "He said that eventually what I felt wouldn't be enough," she admitted, "and I let myself believe him because it was the same thing I told myself, the same thing I said to Bruce. Maybe when I pushed Bruce it wasn't just for him, or for me, or for the fight. Maybe I was testing the truth, maybe I was testing Bruce when he said it _was_ enough."

"He got in your head, Nat, that's all," Tony told her.

"He did but he wasn't wrong," she pointed out, "it was never going to be enough."

"I don't believe that for a second," and he gave a little shrug before he spoke again, "and I would have done the same thing just so you know. Pushing him. You might have done what you did for you, but you also did it for him, and you are _far_ from being the only one at fault for what happened; I created Ultron after all."

"Well, you didn't exactly do it alone," Natasha pointed out with a sad chuckle.

"Semantics," Tony stated with a wave of his hand to brush that off. "Point is, it wasn't just any one single thing that led to the end result. It was so many different mistakes by a _lot_ of different people all wrapped up in one destructive and shiny little bow."

"I see you're growing up again," Natasha told him with a bemused smile.

The fact that he snickered told her he remembered the conversation they'd had about him 'growing up' by being with Pepper and his joke to her that in ten years she could 'grow up too'. "You did, too," he told her, "and you didn't even wait ten years." She figured she must have made a face because Tony moved from his chair to the couch cushion next to her and placed an awkwardly friendly hand on her shoulder, "For what it's worth, I'm sorry he left. You actually brought more out of him than I ever could have."

She shook her head a little and and frowned, "He would have been better off without me ever getting involved with him."

"That's not true," Tony insisted quickly, "but...do you regret it?"

"Which part?"

"Being with Bruce."

She gave a meager little shrug and a sigh as she closed her eyes and avoided the question, "I don't really see how that's important anymore."

"Nat—"

"Boss," saved by FRIDAY, "my scans show a signal is being emitted from our jet."

Natasha stood immediately and Tony was on his feet just as quickly. "That's impossible, FRIDAY. We're flying in stealth mode," the billionaire reminded the AI.

"We are but my sensors indicate that the signal is coming from Miss Romanoff and not the jet itself."

Now she found herself even more on alert as she began to pat down her clothes. No matter where she searched on her, she found nothing that could possibly be giving off a signal, until she ran her hand over her arm and remembered that bothersome little throbbing she felt every little while. Her eyes shifted to the bandage on her upper arm that her hand was covering and in an instant she yanked it off, staring at the wound that had likely seemed unimportant back in the training center. It wasn't large. But it was just large enough that maybe...

"You've gotta be kidding me...there's no way—" Tony muttered out but Natasha didn't even hesitate as she dug her fingers into the wound and she could practically see the look of horror on Tony's face without even needing to look. "Are you insane?!" It was certainly becoming a possibility but after a good minute of painfully digging she pulled out the bloodied, tiny, flashing little capsule. "Shit..." he mumbled next, "FRIDAY, how long has that signal been active?"

"The signal could have been activated anytime within the last fifteen minutes when my last scan was initiated."

Tony rubbed at his eyes even as she crushed the transmitter. "We better hope that thing only just turned on or—"

"Boss, several helicopters have entered our airspace."

"You just _had_ to say it, didn't you?" Natasha groaned out. "You need to land the jet," she told him quickly.

"Again I'll ask, are you insane? Did I actually damage your brain?" came his immediate question. "If we land and they find us then we're dead. Scratch that, I'm dead and you're captured. Frankly I'm not sure which of those is actually the worst thing right now."

"And if we _don't_ land the jet and they shoot us out of the sky? What do you think the survival rate is on that one, Tony?!" she growled out, "there is _nothing_ around, we're on a jet with no weapons, land it while we have still have the chance not to crash this thing into a populated area!"

That seemed to be more effective and Tony barked the order, "Well...they probably won't expect us to actually land. FRIDAY, do it."

"Right away, boss."

"Pepper said I was being ridiculous when I put stealth mode on my personal jet," Tony piped up as FRIDAY landed them with ease in a field, "pretty sure I just proved it was a good idea."

Natasha might have laughed if they weren't in such a situation. "Stealth mode isn't going to mean jack shit if they get too close and we both know it," she reminded him. "Keep it low and slow, FRIDAY," she ordered.

"Understood, Miss Romanoff."

She shifted her gaze out the window and watched the choppers in the distance before she leaned her forehead on the glass and closed her eyes, "This could have been Clint's place..."

"You were right. I never should have tried to bring you there," came Tony's weary comment.

She shook her head just a little, "This isn't on you, Tony. Clint never should have agreed to it. He knows I would _never_ agree to going there when I'm in this much trouble."

"We protect our family, Nat...at all costs," Tony reminded her, "he was trying to protect you."

"Like you said, we protect family," Natasha pointed out, "that's what I'm doing."

When she opened her eyes, the choppers still hadn't gotten much closer, though they were clearly doing a thorough sweep of the area where she had smashed the tracker. She could feel Tony's eyes on her and it wasn't until she looked that she saw the pointed look he was giving her before he spoke, "He's going to defile my corpse in extremely unpleasant ways if they find us."

"If they find us, I can handle it," Natasha assured him.

"Natasha—"

"I need you to trust me, Tony."

He looked like he _really_ didn't want to but he gave an apprehensive nod in response, "I trust you I just don't see how it's remotely possible...and I don't have a suit."

"The helicopters have sent out an EMP wave," came FRIDAY's warning, "we were far enough away to avoid the brunt of the wave but navigation and autopilot have been disengaged, stealth mode is also malfunctioning and now the right engine has gone offline.."

Natasha pushed passed Tony and took the pilot's seat, "Switch to manual."

"The controls are yours, Miss Romanoff, but be aware that we've been detected."

"Sort of figured that," she mumbled out as she tried to pull the jet out of its rather sudden nose dive. "Tony, you might want to buckle up. This is about to be a bumpy landing..."

"Suppose I was due for a new jet anyhow," he commented dryly. She barely kept the smirk from forming at his comment as he strapped himself into the co-pilot's seat. "You sure you can land this without killing us?" he questioned next.

"Well, I've landed in worse conditions and Clint's still alive."

"That's comforting considering the man is half made of plastic at this point."

If she hadn't ordered FRIDAY to fly low and slow, this entire situation probably would have been worse. Higher in the air and that EMP wave would have hit them much harder. Higher and faster during that probably would have gotten them killed. She wasn't wrong though, the landing was less than stellar, in fact, it was less a landing and more a crash. It took a good two or three minutes to get her eyes to refocus after they actually hit the ground and skidded to a rather rough stop and she rolled her shoulders, listening to the cracks that relieved some of the discomfort, and then she turned her gaze to Tony.

"Tony?" His head was dipped down with a large cut from the top of his forehead and just crossing his eyebrow with the tiniest line of blood coursing a thin river down his face. His eyes were closed, but the rise and fall of his chest told her he was at least alive and she felt some relief at that as she dragged herself out of her seat.

"Miss Romanoff, the helicopters have closed in on our crash site," FRIDAY's voice informed her.

"Will the jet fly, FRIDAY?"

"It will take approximately ten minutes to get the systems back up that the EMP took out," FRIDAY answered without missing a beat, "damage was significant to the outer frame but once systems are fully functioning I should be able to get us off the ground."

At least that was something.

"Miss Romanoff, we don't have ten minutes."

"I'm aware, FRIDAY."

Natasha could actually hear the sound of the helicopters hovering above and she knew any second now that new sets of men intent on capturing her would be rappelling down.

"This might have become a Code: Red situation, Miss Romanoff."

Unfortunately, Natasha was entirely afraid that FRIDAY was right and she forced herself to take a deep breath. If she did this then there was no going back. There was no guarantee what might happen, but given the circumstances it really was the only choice, especially if she wanted to get Tony out alive. "You're right," she agreed. "FRIDAY, initiate my override."

"Override..." Tony grumbled out, "what override?" She cursed under her breath before she leaned over and snapped the fastener off of Tony's seat belt, removing any chance he had of getting the thing off short of slicing it away with a knife. "What the hell did you do that for?" came his frustrated disbelief. She couldn't really blame him. She would have been pissed too.

"I'm really sorry, Tony," she told him. "FRIDAY, as soon as the systems are online, get him out of here."

"Understood."

"Abort that order, FRIDAY."

"Sorry boss but unfortunately I can't agree to do that."

Natasha shot a wild look to the door of the jet when she heard noises just outside it and she knew it was now or never. "This is the part where you trust me, Tony."

"I really did fry your brain...shit," he mumbled out with sheer disbelief.

"FRIDAY, as soon as I get to the door you need to initiate Code: Red and close it behind me," she ordered quickly, "Tony doesn't come out and I won't let anyone in. Don't even let _me_ in."

"As you wish, Miss Romanoff."

* * *

Tony almost couldn't believe it the moment that he realized Natasha had overridden him and taken control of FRIDAY. His own creation was _ignoring_ his orders. "Natasha, you're going to get yourself killed!" he yelled out after her as she headed towards the door of the jet.

"I really hope you're right about that," came her reply without looking back.

All the struggling and pulling in the world wasn't getting him out of the seat she had trapped him in. "Natasha!" and he couldn't have kept the anger from his voice if he had tried.

"Code: Red initiating," FRIDAY's voice rang out.

He froze in place in an instant when the shrill and familiar noise rang out throughout the jet. Natasha had only just turned to look back at him and he watched as her expression shifted from apologetic, to neutral, and then a familiar little smile filled with malice curled her lips upward with hollow and empty eyes. "You're sincerely lucky her sheer will during her little reprogramming stunt is keeping me from killing you like the rat I said you were eight months ago, Stark," came the frosty warning as the redhead stepped out and onto the descending ramp. Then she gave him one last comment that was filled with far too much glee, "This looks like it's going to be _fun_."

All he could do was stare in horror as the ramp closed again behind her. "That's...that's not possible..." he mumbled more to himself than anyone in particular. Once again he found himself pulling at the seatbelt she had used to keep him restrained. "FRIDAY...did she just say she _re_ progammed _herself_?!"

"She did, boss. Miss Romanoff overrode my systems two weeks ago when you were in Malibu and reinstated her Red Room programming, though it would appear she used her own mental willpower to manipulate it. The serum she used was a less potent one than the one that had been used on her in the past, and my assumption is that over the years they used it she built up a tolerance, enough so that the lesser serum could not take its full effect over her mind."

Natasha hadn't told them about Ross' threats. She had programmed herself to go back into that 'violent fit of rage' as described by Red Room in case of an emergency and she had never breathed a word of it to anyone. Even if she had managed to force that programming not to harm the people she cared about, it didn't change the fact she was dangerous. Psycho Natasha had left a trail of bodies in her wake during her first activation. She had stabbed Steve and then tried to shoot him, and when murder wasn't an option when they used a contained environment to release her again, her tongue was just as sharp as any blade.

Screams and gunshots from where Natasha exited the jet filled the air and had him searching for anything within arms reach that he could use to cut the belt off. The only moment he paused in his attempts to release the seat belt was when he saw two helicopters come into view through the windshield. Out of the corner of his eye he watched as Natasha snatched a knife from the air as it careened towards her chest, sent it back towards the attacker, then stole the man's gun. There was no hesitation as she took a few quick steps more into his line of sight and fired the entire clip up into the air. He would have never believed it if he hadn't just watched it with his own eyes. The man piloting the first helicopter tried to spin to avoid it, but the bullets met their mark in him as they shattered the window of his door.

The pilot's body slumped over, the helicopter spun out of control, and then slammed directly into the second before any of the men about to rappel out of it could escape. The explosion rocked the jet side to side just briefly as both choppers went sailing into the ground not too far away with smoke and flames billowing out of the wreckage. Natasha had left the jet with absolutely no weapons other than, he assumed, a knife or two that she likely had hidden on her person at all times, and yet she left destruction and carnage in her wake like nothing he'd seen from a single person before.

Tony turned his attention back to her as she leaned over a body and _now_ she was armed with a second gun. She never faltered a step as each bullet was shot with precision, always aimed to kill, and she was stomping her would-be captors like ants. He watched three men go down without ever getting within five feet of her, and as one came up behind her, she swung her leg around in a round house kick that met the man square in the jaw. She tossed one gun that had an empty clip aside and that was the one clear moment where he could discern the 'programming' from the real Natasha he had come to know. Even at the distance he was at he could see the twisted little smile playing on her lips as she sauntered her way up to the man on the ground. Her words from eight months ago played in his mind in an instant.

" _Murder doesn't have to coincide with hate. It can be fun, in fact, I rather enjoy it._ "

Natasha gave the man no illusions about what she was about to do to him. That tainted smile played on her lips like a poison as the redhead reached down, grabbed him by the uniform, the pressed the barrel of the gun to his head. But she didn't pull the trigger. Not right away. Her head turned and swiveled until she was staring directly at him through the windshield, and for half a second, he swore he saw horror in her eyes that belonged to the _real_ Natasha. It didn't last. The man squirmed in her grip, that demented and sinister little smile curled up once more, and she pulled the trigger all while looking Tony right in the eye.

He barely heard FRIDAY when she stated that the systems were back online. All he knew was that horrifying face was thoroughly branded into his mind as the engines roared to life and he finally yanked just hard enough to break the buckle keeping him in the seat. Programmed Natasha or real Natasha, it didn't make much of a difference, he refused to leave without her. "Sorry, FRIDAY," he grumbled out as he tapped on the keyboard of the computer at the front of the jet. It took less than thirty seconds to shut FRIDAY down for a hard-reset and he saw Natasha staring at him, clearly having expected the jet to take off. Her head tilted to the side just slightly and then he watched as she walked towards the side of the jet, her eyes locked onto his until she was out of his line of sight.

Tony released a deep breath before he hit the button to lower the ramp and he stepped out of the cockpit and watched as it lowered all the way to the ground. Natasha was standing right there at the bottom as it lowered just in front of her feet and she stared down at it before gaze shifted up and back to him. He almost didn't see the man who stood up just behind her and his voice rang out in an instant, "Nata—!"

He never needed to finish the warning. Natasha turned just slightly, aimed the gun in less than a second, and fired the bullet straight through the man's forehead. She pulled the trigger twice more and the _click, click_ , said it was out of bullets and she tossed it over her shoulder as her feet moved her up the ramp. Nervous didn't even begin to explain what he was feeling as she stopped right in front of him, practically covered with blood, and gave him the tiniest smirk that seemed so off with her vacant expression, "Well, I guess you're not a complete rat, Stark." Her eyes shifted around the jet as she stepped passed him and moved inside, then her feet took her to the pilot's seat once more as she flipped a few switches.

Tony watched the ramp raise and close and he silently took the co-pilot's seat beside her as she got the damaged jet into the air. She hadn't tried to filet him yet, so he supposed he should be thankful for small favors, but he knew that by no means meant this was the real Natasha again. She was an empty face with a glint of twisted depravity in her eyes. He didn't have the faintest clue what to do about it.

"You can stop staring at me like I'll shove a knife in your eye, Stark," she commented without looking at him. "Much as I would forever cherish that memory, and as much as I want to, I physically _cannot_ harm you."

"Why?" he dared to ask.

This time her eyes did shift in his direction, "Well it's certainly not for lack of wanting to."

"Her mind really was too strong for the serum she used, wasn't it?" he questioned next.

She didn't answer, though considering the scowl on her face, Tony guessed he was right. It was only another few seconds before FRIDAY came back to life, "Reset complete, boss."

He watched Natasha give the controls over to the AI and Tony watched her switch to the seat for communications. She was wiping the blood off her face with one hand and her other hand was tapping at different keys. He wasn't sure exactly what she was doing up until the one and only Nick Fury appeared on the video screen.

"Romanoff," came Fury's unsurprised greeting, though really, Tony never saw much cross that man's face, "should I assume you're calling to get me to send SHIELD agents to pick up more of Ross' lackeys and question them?"

"They won't be answering any questions," came her amused little response, "it's a clean up."

Tony swore he actually saw a flicker of uncertainty cross Fury's face the moment Natasha spoke those last four words but it was gone too fast to comprehend. "Coordinates?"

"Sending them to you now," she answered.

He could almost see it in the former SHIELD Director's eye. The man knew that something wasn't quite right with his former agent. "Natasha, is there something you aren't telling me?" came the question after only a few seconds.

Until now Tony wasn't sure Fury had even known the redhead's first name. He had never actually heard him use it before, at least, not in front of anyone else.

Except Natasha's programming responded with rather callous words even if her tone hinted at being near laughing, "Of course there is. You've left me out of the loop enough times that today I've decided to return the favor."

Tony watched as she actually had the audacity to cut the video feed before the man could respond. Natasha would have never spoken those words to Nick Fury, though Tony found himself wondering if the words she spoke were actually ones she honestly felt. "So...was that just your way of sticking it to _the man_ or is that actually how she feels?"

"Oh she feels that way," came her answer without a care that Natasha would have likely never admitted that particular truth to anyone, "you'd be surprised how much she feels, it's actually sickening, but saying it loud is really a great way for me to piss people off."

Once again he watched her tap away at the keys and yet another call was going through. Again, it didn't take very long for whoever she was calling to answer and soon enough, Clint's face appeared on the screen. Tony sincerely prayed that she didn't have anything awful to say to him too.

"Nat? Where the hell are you?"

"I need you to meet us at our usual spot."

Tony arched an eyebrow up at that, even more so when Clint looked just as confused, "Why? You're supposed to be coming here—"

"I need you to take Stark, preferably before I maim him, and there's also some things I need you to bring me."

Clint's brow was ruffled slightly but he seemed to be going with it, "Name it."

"Chaparral, red clover, pokeroot, bloodroot and cayenne."

Clint never batted an eye, "Those are—"

Natasha didn't bat an eye either, "Yes, they are."

"You're making—"

"Yes."

It seemed that even Robo-Natasha could carry on fragmented sentence conversations with Clint. "I'll get it," he agreed, "when should I be there?"

"An hour."

Tony watched her cut that video feed off too and he found himself wondering if Clint knew his best friend wasn't exactly his best friend. It was the only time that Robo-Natasha had never said a cruel word to someone and he also wondered if maybe that was because she actually had nothing wretched to say to the archer. Finally he dared to ask the question, "What are the herbs for?" The redhead said nothing, she merely trailed her fingertips down to her shirt and lifted it up over the bullet graze he had stitched before. Where hours ago those ghastly blackish veins had been a mere inch off the wound, now they had grown to double that in length. "You said—or she said...whatever...that you were fine," he added.

"The initial symptoms went away, that's all," she told him, "I need to make a blood cleanser."

"Using cayenne?" he questioned with a quirk of his eyebrow.

"It's considered a driver agent, it pushes the other ingredients into the bloodstream faster," she stated without missing a beat.

He frowned, "And then that'll go away? You'll be fine?"

"I'll be right as rain."

Maybe she would, but she was no longer the Natasha he knew, and that bothered him immensely. She also didn't seem completely like her original programming. This new Natasha seemed to be some blend of the two, the bloodlust of Red Room's creation but with Natasha's priorities mixed in somewhere. They had never found the frequency to deactivate her, in fact, the only way Tony could think to bring the real Natasha back fully was using Bruce.

But Bruce was gone.

He kept silent the entire trip to wherever Natasha had brought them to meet Clint, and they were early, which meant furthered awkward silence as they waited for the man to show. "So...you're just going to go off on your own?" he questioned.

"Yes."

"Where?"

"It's sad that you think I'm actually going to tell you," she commented without a care. "We're not friends, Stark, so don't fool yourself. We had a mutual interest when it came to Bruce and now that interest is gone."

He was honestly surprised it took her so long to make a comment like that but he did his best not to let it ruffle his feathers, "If that were true then Natasha's mind wouldn't have overridden your programming, she would have let you kill me."

"You think you're so smart, Stark, and you are in the sense of IQ," Natasha told him as she kicked her feet up near the controls for the plane, "but you're ignorant, childish and a fool."

"Sticks and stones," Tony told her in a sing-song voice.

That actually seemed to piss her off and he stayed still when she stood up, gripped his shirt and yanked him half out of the chair, knife shaking in her hand as she held it above him. She didn't just look angry, she looked down right enraged that he was ignoring her words, then after nearly a minute of the stare down she shoved him back down in the seat as they heard the sound of a vehicle approaching. It seemed Natasha's willpower to keep her programming from killing was only _just_ enough because that had been an eerily close call.

She lowered the ramp after opening the door and then she gripped him by the shirt again, yanked him back out of the seat, and shoved him almost forcefully down the ramp and to the ground. "No need to get handsy," he told her, "my feet can move just fine on their own."

Clint hopped out of the truck with a bag and Tony watched as the man looked at least mildly concerned by Natasha's actions. "Nat...?"

"Not exactly," Tony informed him as the redhead shoved him in Clint's general direction, "it's her programming, or both of them sort of, kinda. She's sort of chock full of crazy right now...but she's a real bitch."

For half a second he watched her arm real back like she might just throw the knife at him, but her hand shook again until she slowly lowered it.

Clint seemed to take that as a cue and Tony watched the archer carefully hold the bag out to her. Just as her hand gripped the bag, Clint stepped closer, "Nat, let me go with you, let me help you."

And it seemed she _did_ have horrible things to say to him too, because they came out in that instant, "I don't need your help and I don't want your help," she told him without batting an eye, "we aren't family and we never were. I was a stray that you found out in the rain and felt bad for and that's all I ever was."

Tony wondered if _those_ were the real Natasha's thoughts as well, if she really felt that way, but Clint looked a little disheartened by the comment. "Natasha...that's not true," he insisted.

Tony put a hand on Clint's shoulder and pulled him back from her. "Let this one go, Barton. She'll say whatever she knows will hurt you most but that's not Natasha," he reminded the other man, "Natasha only managed to manipulate her ability to hurt any of us physically, I learned the first time around that she's a real asshat when she can't just flat out murder you."

It didn't stop Clint because the archer shook his hand off, stepped back into Natasha's personal space, then pulled her in for a hug before she could stop it from happening. Her face went from pissed, to enraged, to pissed again before she finally took on a rather empty expression and stood there like a stiff board in the embrace. He thought that was all that would cross her face but then he saw her eyes slowly start to soften before they just looked overwhelmingly sad. He had a feeling that Natasha was Natasha again.

And she knew that he knew.

Slowly and almost imperceptibly Tony watched as Natasha shook her head just slightly and he pursed his lips shut. He could see her fighting the urge to actually hug her best friend back the moment she was fully herself again. Clint _was_ her family, and even though his obvious show of affection had brought the real Natasha back out of herself, it only made her _more_ determined to protect that family.

So he stayed quiet as she masked her expression when Clint released her.

"Are we done here?" she questioned coolly.

Clint's frown never faded as he backed off, "I guess we are...just be careful, Nat."

Tony let her go because if he were in her position, he would have done the exact same thing, because he had made the mistake of leading the enemy to his home once before. He wouldn't dare make it again and he understood her need to make sure it didn't happen to her. Clint was going to kill him but all he needed to do was get back to the tower, then he could work on finding Natasha again without chancing putting the family of her best friend in danger.

"Barton, given that your lovely partner is stealing my jet, I'm going to need a ride to the airport..." he informed the archer.

"You bet..." Clint answered with a nod, "and...thanks for trying to help her."

"Contrary to popular belief, she's my friend, too," Tony assured him, "whether she likes it or not."

That made the other man smile a little, "I'll bet that just pisses her off."

"Well, it certainly pissed off her programming, she _really_ wanted to kill me."

* * *

 **Who's ready for Bruce?! -raises hand-**


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 3** :

" _We sometimes think we want to disappear,  
when all we really want is to be found."_

Six months ago Bruce didn't make the same mistakes he had in India when SHIELD had managed to keep tabs on him without his knowledge. He didn't involve himself in the affairs of any locals that did populate any of the islands on Fiji and the locals didn't involve themselves with him. While he figured that he had probably gotten himself on the radar over the islands, he had the added benefit that there were enough islands to avoid anyone that tried to pursue him. So far he seemed to have been right.

Or maybe they were simply keeping their distance again until some new disaster struck.

Bruce just hoped it was the former rather than the latter.

It wasn't just his anger over what had happened that kept him away, though he imagined that everyone likely assumed that to be the case and he _was_ angry, but that was only the smallest part of a combination of reasons. Most of that anger had dissipated over the last six months but that memory where Sokovia was about to be destroyed, where Natasha had come to the Other Guy to do her lullaby, it was branded into his memory so thoroughly even though it wasn't Bruce's own memory. His other half had been drawing on Bruce's own betrayal over what she had done and lingering in thought over whether or not to allow her to change him back. The connection that Natasha seemed to have with him even before she had forged one with Bruce himself had won out in the end of that internal debate.

Bruce just wasn't sure if it was fortunate or unfortunate that the uncertainty happened. On one hand, if he had just gone over to her right away then _maybe_ Natasha wouldn't have nearly been killed. On the other hand, if he _had_ changed back before Ultron's sudden attack then she might have actually died without The Hulk to get her out of there. While Bruce was pretty sure he himself would have survived that particular destruction because of his other half, Natasha _was not_ indestructible and he couldn't have lived with that, he couldn't have lived if she hadn't.

She had become the single thing in the eternal struggle between himself and the Other Guy that both of them could agree on. Natasha might have insisted that they weren't a danger to her, but Bruce and even The Hulk knew the truth; while neither of them would ever physically hurt her themselves, it didn't mean that she wouldn't be hurt _because_ of them. Staying gone was safer. It was almost funny in a sad way. She had been the one to tell him that eventually they would need to find a common ground. Bruce wondered if she had imagined that she would turn out to be that common ground when she told him that.

Still, staying gone meant that he not only had to stay away from her but that he also had to stay away from Tony. Both of those were ridiculously hard to keep doing.

It was frustrating how before his relationship with Natasha and before his friendship with Tony, being alone had never bothered him, he had actually preferred the solitude. Being near people had always made him nervous but Tony had managed to break that barrier with his sheer audacity to poke him with pointy and zappy objects. Most of the time the billionaire didn't manage to annoy him but actually amuse him with his carefree commentary and actions.

 _Then_ he managed to do the one thing Bruce would have never expected. Tony called _him_ for a favor. When the one person in the world who wasn't afraid of who you are asked for a single favor in two years, in the infamous words of Tony Stark himself, saying no would have just been a dick move. So he wound up with Natasha in his home. He hadn't imagined that the quiet and betrayed former SHIELD agent would start to mean so much to him, and when those feelings for her did start to float to the surface, he thought it was an even bigger stretch that she would return those sentiments.

But she did return those feelings in her own way, and before she took his choice away to stay out of the fight, she had managed to tell him just how far those affections had come even before Bruce had managed to figure out how far his own had. He knew now. Natasha, by her own admittance, adored him. And he knew now that he loved her. He loved her regardless of what happened. It was supposed to be the most simple thing in the world when two people figured that out, except nothing between them had ever really been simple, and hell, it probably never would be. They had been messy, complicated, and on the verge of disaster from the beginning and until the end. He just didn't know it was love he felt for her then, not until he was gone, not until he nearly got her killed.

Bruce rubbed at his eyes as he sat on the beach and continued his internal struggle over what to do. The fact was that being alone did bother him after Tony and Natasha had made it a point to never leave him alone. It was on a whim that he finally broke down and decided to go back, even if just for a little while, just to at least talk to his best friend. He supposed he could have just called. He imagined Tony would have come to get him without batting an eye. Instead he went about it on boats with minimal people aboard, whatever transportation lacked a crowd so that he could at least figure out what to say to his best friend when he got back.

Not to mention there was the chance he would run into a certain redhead, something he carried mixed feelings about, and _that_ was something he wasn't prepared for even after he finally arrived at the Tower. It felt like he lingered outside of it for ages before he finally convinced himself to go inside and simply deal with it all. It wasn't until he finally stepped into the elevator that FRIDAY greeted him, "Doctor Banner, it's good to see you've returned." He wondered if Tony would share his creation's sentiments. "The boss isn't here right now, though he should be shortly. As always, you're perfectly welcome to make yourself at home."

"Thanks, FRIDAY..." he managed to get out as the elevator slowly rose. Floor by floor, as the elevator rose, he felt his heart rate rise up with it. It was the most daunting elevator ride in history up until the doors opened to the floor he had shared with Natasha. And her door was _right_ there as he stepped off the elevator.

It was that look of desperation just before she pushed him, that 'I adore you' said in a breathless way that had stunned him, _those_ both replayed in his mind as he looked at the door to her room. It was a spur of the moment decision after the memory that made him step up to the door and knock before his brain told him it was a horrible idea.

But it wasn't Natasha who answered his knock, it was merely FRIDAY's voice, "Miss Romanoff has not been in or resided in the tower for nearly five months now, Doctor Banner, only once two weeks ago when she retrieved something from her room."

His heart dropped into his stomach at those words even if he was the slightest bit relieved not to have to face her, "Oh..."

"The Avengers are no longer based inside the tower. The boss had a former Stark Industries building renovated to be the new Avengers' Training Facility."

At least he knew where he could find her when, or if, he was ever ready to. Still, he swung the door open to her room anyways and looked around. Everything looked exactly the same it always had, though that was likely because Pepper had done all the decorating and Natasha had never really added a personal touch to it. He pulled the door closed again and made the walk to his own, but even that was daunting when he realized one small problem...

Even his own room reminded him of Natasha and his anger at her betrayal of what he wanted bubbled back just a little. It also frustrated him further to realize that how much he cared about her seemed to outweigh that anger.

Bruce released a sigh before he pushed open his door and everything looked exactly the way it did the last time he was in it. He took a deep breath before he wandered his way down the hallway and into his bedroom but it gave him pause when it turned out to be the one room that certainly wasn't the way he left it. That ridiculous stuffed Hulk toy, HuggaHulk, was left haphazardly on its side on top of the covers and staring right back at him. He walked over slowly and lifted it up in all its stuffed animal glory. He still hated the absurd little thing with a passion and the only thing that kept him from throwing it away once and for all was the fact that it belonged to Natasha.

But _why_ was it on his bed? He shifted his eyes from the toy to the bed and then he realized why it seemed so off before he had noticed the stuffed animal. The bed was made in near militaristic fashion, and though Bruce typically made his bed, only one person made the bed in this particular fashion. It was almost funny really because Natasha only made the bed on rare occasions when she'd had a rough night. He had always wondered if it was just her way of sticking it to her past when she left her blankets wherever they landed when she awakened and kicked them off.

Still, the last time he had been in his own bed, Natasha had been in it too, and his covers had been left askew. That meant she had been in here since he left and it left a pang of regret inside him.

"FRIDAY said you were here, but honestly, I just thought she was batshit."

* * *

Pepper had picked Tony up from the airport. FRIDAY had informed her about what transpired and he was reminded easily why Pepper had become his world when she was waiting for him with those constantly caring eyes. She hadn't even pushed him to talk about the incident until they were actually at the tower and she was holding the plastic baggy filled with ice against his forehead.

"Tony, if there is one person that knows how to lay low and take care of themselves it's Natasha," Pepper reminded him, "she's remarkably talented in disappearing, you found that out when it took you over two months to find her the last time you went looking for her."

"You weren't there, Pep, Ross' men are _very_ liberal about that 'bring her in alive' order he gave them."

"Boss—"

"Not now, FRIDAY," Tony barked out. He looked back at Pepper and rubbed at his face with his hands, "If there's one thing I've figured out it's that you stick by your friends. You certainly don't let them run off when a crazed General is sending dozens of men after them. I just...I _let_ her leave."

Pepper's eyes were soft and kind as she rested her hand reassuringly on his face, "You might be giving yourself a little too much credit there, Tony. Nobody _let's_ Natasha do anything and nobody could have stopped her. You helped her protect what she cared about and that's what friends do. And now—now you can find her again. If anyone can figure out where she is before Ross it's you."

Tony released a breath of frustration at her words but he supposed she was right. It didn't make him feel any better about everything that had transpired the night before and early this morning but he appreciated it nonetheless and he did feel the tiniest amount better when she pressed her lips to his.

"Boss, you really should know—"

"Not now—" he mumbled against the kiss.

"Doctor Banner is here," FRIDAY finished by interrupting him.

Tony froze in an instant as he snapped his head up and away from Pepper's face, "What?"

"He arrived several minutes before you did, boss."

For a second he didn't know how he was supposed to respond to that. "So, I take it he heard..." he mumbled out.

"On the contrary, he doesn't appear to have any knowledge of what transpired," FRIDAY informed him, "I thought it might be best that you tell him yourself. He's in his room."

Tony only felt anger and frustration in that moment, enough that maybe it wasn't the wisest idea to go and talk to the scientist who had disappeared six months ago. Unfortunately he didn't listen to his gut when it told him to sit there and breathe for a few minutes and he headed for the elevator instead, "Oh, I'll tell him..."

Pepper must have heard it in his voice because he heard the heels of her shoes tapping along the floor after him. "Tony, Tony! Don't say something stupid!" he heard her calling out, "you aren't thinking straight!" He simply pushed the button to close the elevator doors before she could get inside with him. All of the last twenty-four hours combined with the last six months just swirled around like a dark pit in his stomach as he got off the elevator and head towards Bruce's room.

The door was left open and he made his way inside, catching sight of Bruce standing at the end of his bed. Tony only stopped once he got to the doorway of the bedroom and he leaned against the door frame and crossed his arms before he spoke, "FRIDAY said you were here, but honestly, I thought she was batshit."

Tony scrunched up his nose slightly when Bruce turned around and looked over at him. He flicked his eyes down to the object in his friend's hands, that Hulk stuffed animal that Pepper had gifted to Natasha, and somehow that only frustrated him further. Bruce's stating of the obvious annoyed him too, "No...I'm here."

He sighed because Bruce didn't completely deserve how angry Tony actually was at him. He sighed because even though it was more than a little unfair to be angry at him for something out of Bruce's control, he was angry anyways. But really he was angry because for six months, he missed him. Finally he bit out the comment, "Well...you picked a hell of a time, Bruce. You aren't going to like what I'm about to tell you."

He could see that way Bruce actually got a little anxious as he shifted his weight onto his other foot before speaking, "Don't start beating around the bush on me now, Tony."

He gave him the barest of smiles he could in response to the comment. "You might want to sit down," he warned him.

"Tony..."

Well, Tony supposed he _had_ tried to warn him it was bad news, so he told him without bothering to mince his words, "Yesterday Ross attacked the Avengers' facility upstate." He could see the way Bruce's heart practically dropped into his stomach at the comment, but he continued anyways, "They're all okay, but Natasha's gone, Bruce. Ross was after her, he was after her because he's looking for you."

Bruce looked downright grief stricken in that very instant, "What do you mean she's gone? Does Ross have her?!"

"No, at least I doubt it otherwise I'm sure we would have heard about it already," Tony told him, "I'm not sure the man realized when he went after Natasha that you wouldn't actually be around. Guess that rained on his parade just a little bit, so you know, kudos for that element of surprise."

"Where did she go? When?" came the quick questions.

"If I knew where she went then I wouldn't be here," he stated with a roll of his eyes, "and last time I saw her was almost nine hours ago."

Bruce was staring at him for just a moment, clearly unsure of what to say or do, then words just flowed from his mouth, "Was she—was she hurt?"

"Funny question coming from you," Tony grumbled out. "Sure, she was hurt. She was hurt six months ago when you left and never came back but I'm sure the gunshot laced with a blood toxin didn't help matters along yesterday," he told him dryly, "a toxin that stopped her heart, _twice_." Bruce visibly paled in an instant and Tony dropped his hand that was holding the icepack to his head, "She wasn't breathing for almost fifteen minutes. She was _dead_ , Bruce, dead. She was dead because of me, because she was too busy playing a human shield and trying to make sure that I didn't get killed."

"Tony..."

"Then we topped that off, thinking we'd make a clean break, only to realize that at some point during that whole escapade, they shot her with a tracking device." he added. "And as it turns out...when Ross decided to threaten her two weeks ago, she took it upon herself to hijack my lab, put Red Room's programming back into her head, and she activated it as of..." he glanced down at his watch, "almost ten hours ago, because she decided to save my life...again."

"You're telling me that—that Natasha isn't Natasha?" Bruce questions with obvious worry in his face and his voice.

Tony shrugged at that, "I don't know _what_ she is. One second she would seem like Natasha, another she was insane, then she would seem a little more like herself..." He groaned as he rubbed at his face in frustration, "she overrode the original programming, she wasn't able to physically hurt me or Barton."

"But you can find her, right?"

"Oh, so suddenly after six months and a near death experience you want to see her?" Tony questioned with a quirk of his eyebrow, "funny, I just assumed at this point that you didn't care."

"That isn't fair, Tony and you know it..." Bruce told him with a frown, "you weren't there, you don't—"

"I know what she did," Tony assured him and that seemed to ruffle his friend's brow just slightly, "I know she pushed you because she told me. Thing is, if you care about somebody as much as I _know_ you cared about Natasha, you don't just let that go, you fight for it, you idiot! She made a mistake, she did the worst possible thing in the world that she could have done to you, but Natasha is someone who knows exactly what it feels like to have decisions made for her. Maybe you need to think about how hard it was for her to do that to you, how hard it had to be for her to do that and _know_ how much you were going to hate her!"

Bruce looked torn between angry and completely devastated as he sat down on the edge of the bed, "I didn't leave because I was angry. I mean I was...I was angry, but that isn't why I left and that was never the reason I stayed away..."

"So what was?" Tony dared to ask.

"You almost died in Johannesburg and she almost died in Sokovia...both of those were because of me," Bruce told him, "both of you almost got killed because of me. I wanted to keep her safe, I didn't want her to get hurt because of me—"

"Well, that's some serious irony considering the circumstances," Tony bit out sarcastically.

"Tony!" Pepper's voice rang out loud enough behind him to actually bring him back to his senses a little and for the first time he noticed the real horror on Bruce's face; the pain and sadness he had just put on his best friend's face. "Get out," she told him a second later as she pulled at his arm and pushed him out into the hall outside the bedroom.

"But—" He _really_ needed to apologize...

"I said _get out_ ," Pepper hissed as she shoved him further into the hall, "get out before you say something worse than you already have!"

Tony did as she said but he only went to the end of the hallway as Pepper's feet moved towards Bruce. He shifted his head around the corner and watched her take a seat next to Bruce, watched her place a hand on his shoulder, watched her do what _he_ should have done instead of yelling at the poor guy. "He didn't mean any of that the way it sounded, Bruce..." she assured him. "You know Tony, he gets upset and he says things the completely wrong way, but he wouldn't act like that if he didn't care. It's been a—a rough twenty-four hours, Natasha almost died and that terrified him, he just needs time to sort through it all and you—you just had remarkably bad timing..."

"He's not wrong..." came Bruce's weary admittance, "I thought she would be safe if I was gone and instead I hurt her for six months. Now she's in danger again, she almost died again..."

"This isn't your fault," Pepper insisted. "Tony will tell you the same thing when he's done licking his wounds and being an ass," she stated. "What's happening is on Ross, not on you, and Natasha would _never_ blame you for what's happening. She hasn't said one bad thing about you, Bruce..." Tony wished he could have told Pepper that was probably the worst thing she could have said to Bruce. The poor guy looked devastated all over again and Pepper realized her mistake in an instant. Yelling at Bruce was a nicer option compared to telling him the woman he left behind had no unkind words about him. "Hey...you were trying to protect her, and though that might actually make her say a few tasteful words about you for the first time, that seems like a very selfless reason to stay away..."

And _that_ seemed to be the right thing to say. Bruce gave Pepper the smallest and saddest little smile, probably about Natasha's 'tasteful words' when she found out the reasoning rather than about anything else she said, but it still didn't make him feel much better if his dry comment was any indication, "Worked real well...we both got hurt and she was in danger because of me anyways..."

"Like I said, this isn't your fault," Pepper told him with a reassuring smile, "but maybe it's not me or even Tony that needs to say that to you. Maybe you should go to the lab and help Tony find her, go get her back, and I'd stake my company on Natasha telling you the exact same thing. This is on Ross, this is _not_ on you."

"She's right!" Tony called out down the hall, "get your ass moving and let's go find your lost girlfriend, loverboy!" He could see the slightly exasperated expression on Pepper's face and the slightly mortified one on Bruce's, but his friend was on his feet in an instant and coming down the hall towards him. "And, you know..." he tacked on as Bruce stepped up next to him, "sorry."

"It's alright..."

Tony arched an eyebrow up at him as they headed out of Bruce's room and back towards the elevator, "No, it wasn't alright. One of these days you need to just sock me one when I say things like that."

Bruce gave another bare little smile at the comment. "Sorta looks like someone already did," he stated as he nodded to his forehead.

Tony released a half sigh and half chuckle, "You had the right to be angry with her, Bruce. Just...keep an open mind, that's all."

He could see his friend scrutinizing the comment as Pepper joined them on the elevator ride to the lab before Bruce finally asked the question he wanted to ask, "Were you even going to try and find me to tell me about this?"

He kept silent at the question

"Tony..."

Tony knew he shouldn't tell him, if only because it would drag him further down than he was already feeling, but finally he blew out a weary breath, "No."

"Why the hell not?!" came the immediate reaction from Bruce that Tony _knew_ was coming.

"For one thing, even I'm not brilliant enough to magically know which of those _many_ islands of Fiji I would actually find you on, though yes...I did know you were there somewhere. Great way to play keep away, FYI," Tony informed him with a shake of his head, "but for another thing? I wouldn't have told you because Natasha said that _this_ , all that just happened, couldn't be the reason you came back."

"But—"

"She said you'd been through enough...and I couldn't exactly disagree."

Bruce was rubbing at this eyes as he followed him off the elevator and Tony signaled Pepper to stay where she was as they walked into the lab. She was giving him that warning look that told him not to let himself lose it again and he was certainly going to try. It sucked at a stupendously new level to be mad at _both_ Bruce and Natasha, but it was a lot easier when you only had to deal with the one who wouldn't show their feelings because it meant he didn't have to show his either. With Bruce it was entirely different and his next comment reminded him why, "And she hasn't? That's _why_ I tried to get her to stop fighting, because she's done more than enough, but she couldn't see that! She's never going to see that..."

Tony took a seat at his computer and watched as Bruce pulled his own chair up to it too before he replied that, "I'm not saying she hasn't. I'm saying that for someone like Natasha, giving up a fight she thinks she needs to finish is almost impossible..."

"Yeah, I figured that out the hard way..." came a rather sarcastic response from his friend.

It drew out the frustration with Bruce again, the same frustration he was sure Bruce shared with him right now. What he shouldn't say, what Natasha might kill him for saying, came out in an instant, "She _needed_ to finish that fight so she could move on with _you_ , you idiot! She would have gone with you if you hadn't taken off for six months on your own! You got to sit off on a beach somewhere and wallow in self-pity but you didn't have to sit here and watch _everything_ else fall apart!"

"And what the hell would you have done?!" Bruce growled out in an instant. "You know what it's like, Tony! You how it feels when something you've done hurts someone you care about!" The words were enough for Tony to clamp his mouth shut as he stared back at Bruce. "So...you tell me, you tell me what I was supposed to do... Let her come with me and chance getting her killed for real? I couldn't live with that..."

"I didn't run, I didn't disappear," Tony pointed out with a shake of his head. "I do stupid things, Bruce. I do stupid things all the time, something of which I proved on a massively world decimating sort of way six months ago. But I don't run, I try to fix it."

"Natasha _pushed_ me into Sokovia's crater! She forced me to be _him_!"

Tony leaned back in his seat and studied Bruce with a more somber expression as he spoke with a softer voice, "Well, maybe the part of you that left did it out of a need to protect her but I think the part of you that stayed gone did it more out of anger. If it was about protecting her and only protecting her, you would have left after Johannesburg, you would have never asked her to run with you in Sokovia." It hadn't been the nicest way but at least he had gotten him to admit how angry he actually was, and if the height Bruce's voice had just reached was any indication, the man was beyond angry. He put a hand on Bruce's shoulder as the other man looked a little torn by the rage that had come out in his voice and Tony gave a little sigh before he spoke again, "But I'm guessing that both of those reasons for running don't seem so important right about now?"

"Not so much..."

"Now that we got that out of our systems, and nice with the yelling and not changing a shade, by the way," Tony told his friend with a smirk, "let's find our girl now that I'm pretty sure you got a little bit of that anger out _before_ you actually saw her again."

"That may not be a problem, boss..." came FRIDAY's interruption, "there's been in incident in Reykjavik."

"Where the hell is that?" Tony questioned in a dumbfounded stupor.

"Iceland," Bruce answered without batting an eye.

Tony quirked an eyebrow up slightly. "FRIDAY, are you telling us Natasha is in Iceland?"

"I believe so, yes," FRIDAY answered, "contrary to what we thought her intentions were, Miss Romanoff does not appear to be hiding."

Tony wrinkled his brow at that and watched Bruce's expression become nearly the same. "Are you telling me she went there and just gave away her position?" he dared to ask.

"Yes," FRIDAY answered, "although I believe in this case it's more of a ploy for the hunted to become the hunter."

Now Tony was more alert, "What did she do?"

"According to a SHIELD report filed several minutes ago, she ambushed and killed the men who came to look for her."

"You're having FRIDAY monitor SHIELD reports?" Bruce questioned.

"Please, I was doing that _before_ we knew HYDRA had taken them over, now I just have a valid reason," Tony told him with a dismissive wave of his hand. All he could think was that Natasha wouldn't be playing a game so dangerous. She had been all too determined to disappear so that she wouldn't be used against Bruce, which only left one reason why she might have done it, "Her programming is in control..."

"That seems like a likely scenario, boss."

"Is she still there?" came Bruce's question after he had sat in silence for a few minutes.

"I'm afraid I don't know," FRIDAY answered, "she has not appeared back on the radar since that incident."

Tony saw Bruce looking to him with _that_ look before the scientist made the request, "How fast could we get there?"

All he could do was give his friend a frown, "Going to take time for me to get us a new ride considering Natasha stole mine. I can easily get us a ride out if we need one before my backup jet is here, but right now, all we'll wind up doing is flying around the world without knowing her exact location." He sighed a little at Bruce's disheartened face. "Find her, FRIDAY," Tony ordered, "before someone else does and manages to actually out-psycho our psycho." He ran his hands through his hair and watched as Bruce stared down at the floor with his fingertips rubbing at his temples. "She didn't waste any time, she had to have flown the jet straight there and then somehow managed to get Ross' attention," he mumbled out, mostly talking to himself.

"How would he get to her that fast in Iceland?" Bruce questioned in return, "that doesn't make sense. Even if Natasha went straight there in your jet she must have shaved at least an hour off the trip, and even by giving away her position it takes time to prep a team and then send them after her..."

Tony mulled that over but Bruce was right, he would have had to have had men in the area to respond that quickly. "So where's he getting all the men? SHIELD took in all the ones who attacked us at the facility, that was more than two dozen...then Natasha's psycho programming actually killed a dozen more a few hours later when they found us again. Now she's killed eight more men, so what is Ross doing, growing these guys in Barton's cornfield? _"_

"That's not funny, Tony, this is serious..." Bruce grumbled out with a shake of his head.

"It really says something when the bad guys start getting environmentally friendly in their attempts of murder, mayhem, and the kidnapping of your crazy Russian girlfriend," Tony told his friend with a shrug, "see, Bruce? The whole world is going green these days, not just you." He could see Bruce rolling his eyes and he switched back to a more serious tone as he went back to voicing his thoughts out loud, "But really...who the hell has men stationed in Iceland?" Only one answer came to mind and that thought exited his mouth as well, "There was the possibility of a HYDRA base in Iceland but if it _was_ there, we couldn't find it," he mumbled out. "Ross might not be using military at all for this. You think about it, he did work with that Constantin character from Natasha's past, and that sociopath was working with HYDRA. HYDRA might not have fallen as far down as we hoped, it's not a huge stretch to think they just decided to lay low and bide their time..."

"Well we've seen enough to know they have more than enough agents at every corner of the world," Bruce admitted with a sigh, "but if Ross got HYDRA to back him, his play must benefit them somehow, so—so what could he have planned involving Natasha and I that would get HYDRA fully involved?"

"A million dollars says it has to do with your greener side." That seemed to have given Bruce pause and Tony quirked an eyebrow up when the scientist's face turned a little pale. "What? I thought that was the obvious answer here..." he paused when he realized that wasn't the issue. "What is it?" he questioned.

Bruce was on his feet in an instant and moved towards the elevator, "I'll be right back."

Tony narrowed his eyes slightly and waited impatiently as the doors closed, "You think his mind disappeared when he did and he just _forgot_ to bring it back with him, FRIDAY?"

"No offense, Boss, but the probability of that being a plausible possibility is only .27988%."

He shrugged that off, "But it _is_ still a possibility. Maybe he left it on another island." Tony tapped his fingertips on his desk as he waited, glancing between all the screens as FRIDAY ran through facial recognition. Several minutes went by before he groaned, "What did he do? Go to Iceland?"

"No," came Bruce's answer from behind him. Tony glanced down as a folder plopped down on his desk, "Remember those missing pages of the file HYDRA had on me in the archipelagos?" Tony gave a nod to the question and picked up the folder as Bruce continued, "Natasha was the one who removed them, and...that's them."

Tony stared at him for a moment in uncertainty before he opened the folder and stared down at the water damaged pages. The first had a discolored picture of Natasha's hand on The Hulk's wrist as she was crouched down and protecting Pepper while doing the lullaby. "You _both_ hid this? You knew that they were interested in the lullaby and hid it?"

"We weren't intentionally hiding that one..." Bruce admitted as he ran his hand through his hair and Tony gave him a miffed look as his friend reached over and lifted it to reveal the second page, "we were hiding that... We didn't know _what_ we were, Tony, and if we couldn't explain it to ourselves how could we explain it to the entire team?"

"And with everything going on...you forgot about it," Tony concluded with a sigh.

"Well...we _were_ kind of busy," Bruce muttered, "HYDRA bases, robot army..."

Tony quirked an eyebrow up as he held up the second page, the picture was Bruce hovering over Natasha, a hand on her waist and the other tangled in her hair. He raised his other eyebrow up so they were both risen to equal heights as he looked at Bruce, " _This_ was the kiss and run? Holy crap. No wonder you got her undivided attention, _yowza_."

Bruce was a little red in the face but Tony supposed it was a good thing that at least one of them could stay on topic, "Yeah, well...not just hers it seems..."

That sobered him back up in an instant and Tony frowned, "So...the real question just became whether or not this is about just you or..."

"Or the lullaby..."

"And either way, Natasha is a necessity. Ross couldn't find a way to draw you out without going after Natasha..."

"And Natasha is the only one who can do the lullaby..." Bruce finished.

Tony leaned back in the chair and handed the pages and the folder back to Bruce, "I can't decide if any of this made me feel better or worse."

Bruce was leaning forward, elbows perched on the desk as his hands rubbed at his face in obvious frustration. Tony barely made out the mumbled words, "We need to find her..."

"I just did, Doctor Banner," FRIDAY's voice rang out, "Facial recognition just picked her up. I'm bringing up the feed now."

Tony leaned forward along with Bruce as the enlarged screen appeared over the desk, "How long ago?"

"It's happening right now, boss, this feed is live."

That was unnerving. Even more unnerving was that Natasha stood there, staring directly up at the camera with a murderous glint in her eyes and a sadistic little smile to match it. To top it off she gave a tiny little finger wave to the camera. She might not known they were watching _as_ she did it but she clearly knew they would be watching it eventually. Then she stepped off the camera feed. He had definitely been right. That was _not_ Natasha. That was her programming.

"What is she doing?" Bruce mumbled out as he stared at the screen with clear uncertainty, "FRIDAY...can you pick her back up?"

"I'll do what I can but Miss Romanoff can avoid cameras if she wishes to do so."

Bruce's concerned eyes shifted over to meet his own and Tony frowned at his friend's next words, "This is my fault..."

"It's not your fault, Bruce. Pepper was right," Tony insisted, "this is on Ross."

"You don't get it, before she had you activate her the first time to try and figure out the programming, she told me she didn't want to be left like that," his friend mumbled out.

That was something he hadn't known and Tony said the only thing he could think to say, "Her programming was gone, Bruce. You helped her do that, you made sure she wasn't left that way. This was a choice she made on her own."

"Boss, I've located Miss Romanoff again in a public park just outside Reykjavik," FRIDAY informed them as the feed appeared on the screen, "she appears to be following two men with guns in the same park."

"Shit..." Tony mumbled out as he turned back to the screen and watched her slinking up behind them with a knife in hand.

* * *

Nikolao Constantin watched from the hill overlooking the park, watching through the scope of the sniper rifle. He listened with disinterest as Ross' little HYDRA lackeys searched the park and chatted among themselves like fools. They weren't the most intellectual individuals he had ever seen. If their loud footsteps wouldn't alert Natalia to their presence then their voices certainly would. Given that she seemed to decide to become the predator in this chase rather than the prey, he was fascinated to watch her methods. The lives of these men were irrelevant anyway, and until now, she had seemed to have taken on a code where she only killed if she absolutely had to. Probably as part of being one of those Avengers.

Something changed and he wanted to see what it was. He wanted to _watch_.

"Can't believe we're supposed to take this crazy bitch in alive..." he heard one of them men say, "I tell you what, she comes after me like she did the others then I'm going for the kill. I'm not getting paid enough not to."

"Don't let Ross or his insane Russian lap dog hear you say that. I heard she's already killed twenty of us already."

Nikolao smirked at the comment. He would have gone and killed the man himself but instead he watched the redhead fall into step just behind them. They didn't even notice her additional steps and he found amusement in the way she was picking at grime from under her fingernails with her knife. Then her words came over his comm, "I heard that you two were next."

It took effort not to laugh at her interruption into their chat and as they turned in shock at her voice. She swiped the knife cleanly across the throat of the man who said he would go for the kill and then her boot hiked up and kicked the second man in the chest as she snatched the rifle with her free hand. Her bloodied hand slipped the knife into her waistline with ease before gripping the rifle and aiming it right at the forehead of the second man before he could even fathom the idea to get up. It was all done with quick, precise and fluid movements and also with the same grace she had always carried in a fight.

The smile on her face as she pulled the trigger was fascinating and it distracted him enough to be surprised when she turned without hesitation, aimed the rifle straight at him, and fired.

Nikolao barely shifted his head to the side as the bullet grazed his cheek and _now_ he was impressed. By the time he looked back through the scope and lined it back up with where she had been, she was gone, and no matter where he searched she was nowhere to be seen.

It was probably best to disappear before she took up a position to flank him.

* * *

Bruce stared at the video screen in shock. He was already reeling between the knowledge that Ross was after Natasha and that she had nearly died as a result. As much as he wanted to be pissed that Tony had yelled at him, he couldn't, not when he knew it was his best friend's way of saying he cared. Clearly Tony cared not just about Bruce, but Natasha had grown on the billionaire as well, and the last twenty-four hours proved it as they went to extensive levels to save one another's lives. The fact that she had activated her Red Room programming to protect herself and Tony was the most worrisome of everything. She had all but begged him never to leave her under the control of her conditioning eight months prior.

He watched her kill the two men with a smile on her face after practically playing with them as she followed them, then turned and shot with ease at something that was off camera. The expression on her face changed in an instant from hollow and amused to horrified and remorseful. She snatched their weapons from the bodies and took off at a run. He stood up and looked closer as she glanced up wearily at the camera and shook her head almost imperceptibly before disappearing completely. "She's fighting for control..." he mumbled out.

"Certainly looked that way..." came Tony's response. "I know what that shake of the head meant," he said next and Bruce glanced over at him. "She's taking off again. Even if we tried to go there, she could be in another country again. Bad enough trying to figure out where Natasha herself would go but trying to figure out where her programming will decide to stop and kill? That's a new ballgame I hadn't prepared for."

"She was just in control after it ended," Bruce reminded him, "we just saw it."

Tony's eyebrows raised at him before the man puffed out a sigh, "Bruce, when she left Barton and me in that cornfield she left as herself. Barton didn't know, but I did...I let her leave without a fight because I agreed with not putting his family at risk, and putting them at risk would have driven her over the edge. I needed to make sure she would come back when I found her."

That was disconcerting but he didn't blame Tony for that, "You wanted to make sure she didn't disappear like I did...I get it."

"I lost one friend and at this point I thought it was for good. I wasn't willing to lose a second."

"Not being here doesn't mean I stopped being your friend..." Bruce reassured him, "I'm always your friend, even when you're being an ass."

He watched the stink-eye Tony gave him at the comment, "I don't take comfort in that when I'm one of your only friends, and don't compare my attitude to my well-developed rear-end, my ass is much nicer than my personality."

Bruce actually chuckled with honest amusement at that. He had missed the way Tony could take an awkward conversation or a bad time and actually make him smile with ridiculous statements and crazed antics.

"I thought you should be aware, boss, your jet just took off from Reykjavik. It only appeared on radar for a fraction of a second though and I'm afraid we won't know where she's going next."

It seemed Tony was determined to take his mind off the fact that they were about to lose Natasha's location again. Even if they could have hopped on a plane or jet, they both knew they never would have had gotten there before she was in the wind again, hell, she had literally just gone back off the radar. Tony's words came out with his nose all scrunched up, "Why do you smell like fish?"

Bruce had to blink a few times before he gave Tony a quizzical look.

"That's a serious question. I noticed it earlier but was actively trying to ignore it. You really do smell like fish."

He hadn't even realized it and he glanced down at himself, "Uh...fishing boats. It was—it was sort of a long trip home."

"Well go—go take a shower, or five," came Tony's order as he pinched the bridge of his nose, "it's distracting and a tidbit repugnant."

Bruce didn't really want to but Tony's revolted expression said he might actually smell that bad, "I guess..."

"I'm going to stay down here and if something comes up then I'll tell you," Tony assured him. He didn't quite doubt that but Bruce wanted to stay. "You look like shit, Bruce, and you smell like it. Shower, shave, and come back to the human race. When we do find Natasha you can't go walking up to her looking like-" he could see Tony searching for the best joke, "man, I honestly have nothing for what you look like right now."

Bruce narrowed his eyes at that, "I'm going to walk away before you actually come up with—"

"Joe Dirt!" he heard the billionaire call out.

"I don't have a mullet."

"I'll keep working on it."

Bruce shook his head a little as the elevator doors closed. He squeezed his eyes shut as he leaned against the elevator wall. Tony had drawn out the fact that he was more angry with Natasha's actions in Sokovia than he had been willing to admit to himself. It was the first time he questioned his reasoning for staying away, the first time he thought it just might have been more about anger and betrayal and _not_ just about protecting her from the dangers that surrounded him. While he knew that Tony's outburst was more out of worry and frayed nerves, Bruce had long ago learned to understand his best friend's reactions and Tony didn't yell unless he cared, and he didn't bother to do it if he thought he wouldn't get a response out of it.

It took him a moment to realize the doors had opened back to his own floor and he stepped out, once again finding himself face to face with Natasha's bedroom door. For six months all he thought about was that she forced his transformation, but staring at her door, now he remembered the little things that were _good_. Her ridiculously breathy little laugh when he had tried not to wake her up when he joined her in her bed only to practically land on top of her. She was never bothered by his fumbling or stammering around her, it only seemed to make her like him more, which had only endeared her further to him.

He took a breath and went into his own room again. Showering and getting dressed were a decent enough way to at least relax a little more, at least until he found himself looking back at the perfectly made bed and the Hulk toy that had been re-abandoned atop it. This time he noticed what he hadn't before about the toy and he picked it up, staring at what was just barely poking out from the knight costume that adorned it. He pulled it out carefully and sighed at the what stared back at him.

' _Wish you were here._ '

The stupid postcard he had sent Natasha from India. He shoved both into the drawer of the end table and he laid down on top of the covers.

The pillow smelled like her.

"Natasha slept in here two weeks ago...didn't she, FRIDAY?"

"She did, Doctor."

"Why...?" he wondered aloud.

Bruce didn't actually expect an answer, but FRIDAY seemed to decide to give him one anyways, "It would only be speculation, Doctor, but typically a person does that because they miss the other person."

He groaned as he pulled the pillow over his face. It sounded like legitimate enough reasoning and half of him wanted to go into Natasha's room and do nearly the exact same thing.

He found himself hoping FRIDAY was right in her speculation. He missed Natasha, too.

* * *

 **What's a little confrontation between friends? Speaking of confrontation...my tastebuds really want a taco but my upset stomach is saying, 'Hell no.' Tastebuds might win. It'll be worth it. Nobody mind me, I go on rants about tacos when I'm uncertain how I feel about the chapter I just wrote. xD  
**


	5. Chapter 5

Just wanted to give a special thanks to **Claire** for all the kind reviews, they really are sweet and made me super happy! **:)** You're all killing me with the love and I truly appreciate it! 14 reviews for the last chapter was more than unexpected.

 **Chapter 4** :

" _We carry these feelings inside us  
They hold us down like anchors  
They drown us out at sea."_

Bruce found himself looking through SHIELD's updates on a tablet as he made tea until FRIDAY decided to make his life easier by voicing what he was searching for.

"If you're looking for anything relating to where Miss Romanoff might have gone, SHIELD either hasn't found anything or isn't putting it in accessible reports."

That was disconcerting and Bruce poured the tea into a mug as he released a sigh. Either Natasha had decided not to continue her game of cat and mouse or someone was simply hiding the evidence. He hoped it was the former and not the latter but that hope diminished fairly quickly.

"Nick Fury is on the line for the boss but he has been quite keen on ignoring him, would you prefer I direct the call to you, Doctor?"

Bruce let that settle in his thoughts for a moment. He wasn't Fury's biggest fan and he didn't imagine the former Director was a fan of his either. Still, Natasha had always seemed rather fond of him and vice verse, and he imagined finding her whereabouts was at least something for them to settle their differences on. "I suppose..." he agreed. He heard the screen light up behind him and he couldn't help but wonder why Tony thought a video screen was a necessity in the kitchen areas. He turned to see Fury's face on the screen. If the man was surprised to see him then Bruce definitely couldn't tell, the man was more difficult to read than Natasha was, and that in itself was impressive.

"Not who I thought I was going to be talking to..." Fury mused with no real change of facial expression, "but I guess I shouldn't be too surprised to see you given the circumstances."

Bruce couldn't really help but give a less than business-like response, "Something I can do for you?"

"Well I was going to ask Stark about a location on you but I guess I don't need to do that now," Fury answered without missing a beat. "You're working together to find Romanoff?"

"No...we're going over possible paint palette choices for the lab, Tony was thinking forest green but I was thinking more of a tart apple."

Tony would have been proud, especially given that Bruce was certain Fury's one eye twitched a little before the other man responded, clearly deciding to ignore the comment, "SHIELD is finding it near impossible to keep up with her. She's one of the best they had for a reason, Banner. However she's alerting Ross and his men to her presence is the key but so far SHIELD can't lock that down either."

"Natasha is still hunting them down?"

"Three more incidents in the last twenty-four hours in Denmark, Norway and Estonia," Fury answered him, "I'll send you what I've got. She's not being subtle. She's killed over three dozen men already, SHIELD covered up two of the incidents but the Estonia one was cleaned up before we ever arrived."

"If you didn't do it then who did?" Bruce dared to ask.

"My bet would on be your boy Ross," Fury answered, "I doubt the military would be in full support of him not only working with HYDRA but also hunting down one of the Avengers. His attack on the Avengers' facility already has the military on alert. They know he's behind it. Seems Stark had Vision get into Romanoff's call logs and send them the video call between her and Ross two weeks ago." Bruce frowned at that but he didn't need to make the request because Fury spoke first, "I'll send that to you, too."

"Appreciate it."

Bruce could see Fury clearly had more he wanted to say, though the other man seemed to decide to keep their conversation topic on the business at hand, "I know Natasha isn't herself, Banner, I knew it the second she called me for a clean-up when she was with Stark. She's creating more chaos right now than what put her on SHIELD's radar ten years ago and I can't keep this under wraps forever." The fact that Fury had gone with Natasha's first name over her last name this time told Bruce the real levity the other man was facing. Natasha's programming was dangerously close to making the redhead public enemy number one. "Right now the only fatalities are Ross' men but if there's even one civilian casualty then this is going to change real quick from SHIELD and the Military seeing her as protecting herself from Ross and HYDRA, to seeing her as a target for elimination."

"You'd let them put a kill order on Natasha?" Bruce questioned quickly, "I don't know why that surprises me but it does. Here I thought you actually cared about her."

"I don't need you questioning my priorities here, Banner," Fury warned him, "I'm working what pull I've still got to keep Natasha off the threat list but my reach can only go so far."

Bruce was barely keeping his frustration in check at this point, "This isn't her fault! You said it yourself, she isn't herself, she's not in control."

"Then who is?"

Bruce paused at that in an instant. "Her Red Room programming," he finally answered after a beat, "the programming doesn't know anything except murder."

That actually seemed to ruffle Fury's feathers because now he _did_ look a little uncertain and it seemed the former Director hadn't know this particular bit of information pertaining Natasha's programming, "And you think you can get rid of it?"

"I did it once..." Bruce informed him, "I can do it again, just buy me time to get to her."

The other man was completely silent and stone-faced once again and Bruce waited impatiently. Finally Fury sighed and nodded, "I can keep her off the military's threat list easily as long as her escapades stay out of the country. The current SHIELD Director will keep pulling strings on his end without me asking but I'll make sure to make that call, just for formality's sake." Bruce felt some relief flood through him. "And Banner? Don't ever insinuate again that I don't care about her. I could go throwing the same accusations towards you, except I know damn well they'd be false ones just like you know yours are, so I won't bother with that particular pissing match."

Bruce felt a retort at the back of his throat just itching to come out but he bit it back. He watched as the tablet in his hands lit up with the information Fury sent and then he looked back up at him, "Any thoughts on where she might be going next?"

"Honestly, I have no idea and she's been quiet for a few hours now," Fury admitted, "there are a _lot_ of places she could go. There's a chance she's taking this fight into Russia given that Estonia is one its neighbors and that's her last known location. Word is that even the KGB isn't fond of HYDRA. They were taking out some of those cells at the same time we were looking for the scepter and I doubt they'd be too fond of HYDRA agents in their country. But if she doesn't go into Russia then she could be going anywhere."

Bruce rubbed at his eyes now. All of that was only useful _if_ she went to Russia and even her homeland was a rather large area to search. "I'll find her..." and he said it even though he wasn't quite confident that he could actually do it unless Natasha decided she wanted to be found.

He could see Fury taking that in, though his expression was neutral when finally he spoke again, "I'm holding you to that." And Bruce just couldn't be sure why but Fury always seemed to have some dire need to say at least one completely ridiculous comment in nearly every conversation he'd heard from the other man, and his next one was up to his usual par on the weirdness scale, "And I'd go with the tart apple."

Bruce couldn't quite contain the eye roll as the video call ended and he looked back down at the tablet and opened the video call between Natasha and Ross. It wasn't very long, and he only got actual visual of Ross' rather self-absorbed and over confident posture. It was clear by Ross' satisfied little smirk that he'd gotten some sort of physical response from Natasha when the man told her she would bring Bruce to him. Not once during the rather short conversation, most of it filled with threats, did Natasha bother to tell the General that Bruce wasn't there. She simply wished him luck and cut off his next attempt at a threat.

He quickly swiped towards the other information Fury had sent. In Denmark, the report said that Natasha left six bodies during the middle of the night, right in the middle of a public market place. Broken necks, slit throats and knife wounds to the heart were all the redhead left behind. The only reason that could even be covered up was that she had at least done it under the cover of darkness with no witnesses. Norway wasn't much better, in fact, Norway was worse. Eight bodies killed in the same three ways, left in the alleyways of cities. These ones had been done during the day but she had still kept herself away from prying eyes.

Estonia was an unknown element. SHIELD knew she had been there. Reports of a single redheaded woman fighting six more men in the street was all they had to go on though. Again, Natasha had done her battle in the dead of night, but somebody had cleaned up the aftermath before local authorities or SHIELD could get there. There was no physical proof it ever truly happened.

There was no pattern to her madness. No clear path she was traveling for him to understand where she might be next. Her killer instinct left no path to follow that made any real sense other than the fact that she was keeping it on the opposite side of the Atlantic Ocean. At least he could cross off the one country he was actually in.

He figured the best he could do was share what he got from Fury with Tony so he took the tea and headed back for the lab. It only took a few minutes to get back down there but when he did, he was surprised to find there was an actual legitimate excuse for Tony avoiding Fury's calls for once.

"She's been completely off the radar for the last twenty-seven hours. We know how she spent the eleven hours between then and when she abandoned me with your ass, so you tell me, where would Natasha go?"

Bruce stayed quiet as he stepped just inside the lab and he stayed in the back as Tony spoke to Clint. Natasha had been gone and on her own for just over thirty-eight hours, ten of which she spent traveling to Iceland, one of which she spent playing the predator on Ross' men while there. While Tony didn't have the new information Bruce did, it still stood to reason that if Ross had found her and taken her, in or after Estonia, then they would have heard by now; after all, Ross was doing this to drag Bruce himself out of hiding.

There was a heavy sigh from the other end of the video call and Clint's voice answered, "When SHIELD went down all of Nat's safe houses and covers were blown, at least all the ones she actually had on file with them."

"I knew she had to be hiding more of them, she's smart like that, smart people don't give away _all_ their secrets to snake tainted agencies of the government." Bruce rolled his eyes at the comment but rolled them even more dramatically at his next comment, "I'm calling it S.T.A.G for short."

Clint snickered and shook his head, "Of course you are, Stark. Look, I could give you the list of the ones she does have that I _do_ know about and you could go on a dead-end hunt but she won't be at any of them."

"Because you know about them..."

"Exactly, Nat won't be found unless she wants to be found, and when she wants to be found she leaves some clue for me to find," and Bruce grimaced when the archer's eyes flickered towards him, "and you can just walk in the lab, Banner, I'm good with arrows but I can't shoot them through a screen from Iowa." Bruce supposed he would have to suck it up and he stepped further into the lab and moved next to Tony. He watched Laura Barton smack her husband on the back of the head with one hand while she bounced a chunky baby boy on her hip in the other arm. Clint's next words were unexpected, "But if one of you two geniuses craft a way for me to virtually shoot arrows, then get Nat on a video call so I can shoot a little sense into her."

Bruce arched both his eyebrows up as he looked at Clint on the screen, "You're not pissed?"

"You had every right to take off," Clint informed him with a shrug, "and she had a right to be upset you took off. Hell, you were gone before I could even comprehend you two had a—you know—a thing going on. Besides, you look like shit so I'd say you two have hurt each other enough without my stellar aid. I don't need to say a thing on the matter."

Bruce chuckled sadly at that comment but he supposed it was true enough, "Thanks...I think."

"Glad you're back though," Clint stated next, "maybe next time you could at least send an e-mail or something so we know someone didn't find a way to kill you. Maybe a postcard, Nat was a weirdo, she really seemed to like postcards. Even my kids started giving them to her—"

Bruce didn't hear anything else Clint said after that, not until Tony's words broke through his thoughts, "See that face, Barton? That's the face of a man who just came to some life altering realization. He did that yesterday, too—"

"Where's he going?

"I honestly have no idea. I got used to his Earth shattering revelations making him flaky and flighty long ago. It's good to see some things don't change when your girlfriend shoves you off a cliff."

And Bruce found himself in the elevator without even realizing he had moved there. He waited impatiently as it rose and he stepped off the moment the doors open. His feet took him to his room and right into his bedroom, his fingers pulling open the drawer of the end table. He tossed the Hulk toy abomination onto the bed and yanked out the post card, staring at it in wonder. Would she have actually left such an obvious tell for where she was going? Clint said she left clues for the other man to find when she wanted to be found, but Bruce couldn't imagine why she might leave one for him, not when she had no reason to think he would even come back and see it.

He stared down at the postcard with mixed feelings of hope and apprehension. Hope that she just might be there but that niggling doubt and fear that she might not. It could just be a coincidence that she left tucked the stupid thing inside the toy. It could also be a coincidence that she wasn't _that_ far away from India when she'd been in Estonia. It would have taken her less than seven hours.

"You left your door wide open, you okay?"

Bruce turned and looked at Pepper in the doorway. He fidgeted with the postcard in his hand with uncertainty. "How bad was it for me to just...take off?" he finally asked. He figured it was probably best to ask a woman the question, though Natasha was certainly a different kind of woman, she _was_ still a woman. Pepper looked unsure of whether or not to give him an answer and he gave a small nod, "Just...it's alright, just tell me the truth."

Pepper gave a small inclination of her head as she stepped into the room fully and took a seat on the bed. He only sat when she patted the spot beside her and he watched her pick up the Hulk stuffed animal and chuckle at it. "I remember giving her this," she stated with a smile, "I honestly never saw Natasha laugh that hard before, or laugh at all really, but...it was a good reminder that she's as human as the rest of us."

She handed to toy over to him and he took it with a little less distaste than he usually did. Natasha had also laughed ridiculously hard when she handed it to him. "She really did like this thing, didn't she?" he questioned.

"She did, and she cares about you," Pepper tacked on for good measure. "She told Tony that she had never bothered before to try and actually have a relationship. She told him she had no idea what she was doing," she explained next. It was something he had always assumed, but he had never actually asked Natasha the question and she never came out and told him. "People need closure, Bruce," she informed him with a sad smile, "and Natasha didn't get that with you. The goodbyes that hurt most are the ones that never get said or explained, and take it from a female perspective here, the end of your first relationship is always the hardest."

That definitely didn't make him feel better, if anything, it only served to make him feel worse. "What if I don't want that to be the end?" he dared to ask.

Pepper gave a real smile at that response and she bumped his shoulder with her own, "Then don't let it." That was probably easier said than done.

"That's twice in as many days that my girlfriend is in your bed, we really need to go get yours back."

Bruce gave a half-chuckle in response to that before he commented, "You can have her back...I need some time to think anyways."

He saw the way Tony quirked an eyebrow up but Pepper took the hint. She leaned over, kissed Bruce on the cheek, then stood up and walked passed Tony.

Tony was eyeing him warily with a small frown, "You ran out of the lab like a bat out of hell. Sort of made me think you had one of those crazy thoughts that would lead to some sort of breakthrough."

"Turned out to be useless," and he felt _terrible_ for lying to his best friend about this.

"Alright...if you say so."

Bruce watched him linger for a few more seconds before Tony finally left the room. Tony was probably going to hate him for what he was going to do but if Tony and Clint hadn't been able to convince Natasha not to leave without her being cruel, he doubted they could get her to come back without receiving the same treatment again and getting the same result. Given that last time Natasha had manhandled the billionaire out of his own jet and clearly _wanted_ to shoot him, Bruce wasn't going to risk that her willpower would manage to outweigh her programming forever. _Nobody_ was that strong. When you had something inside clawing to get out and wreak havoc, nothing could keep it inside forever and that was something he knew well.

It was like the nightmare Wanda Maximoff had showed him just before the incident in Johannesburg had come to life. He was the reason Natasha put that monster back inside herself. A monster that had already killed far too many men, Ross' men yes, but still... She had stopped merely defending herself when she was attacked and turned it into, what her program would consider it to be, a game of murder and mayhem.

As much as he loathed the idea that it might be Natasha's programming he found in India and not Natasha herself, it would be better than not finding either, and he tucked the postcard into his pocket as he stood up. "FRIDAY, does Natasha have any weapons still in the tower?" he questioned.

"She does," FRIDAY answered, "a gun behind your headboard."

He blinked several times before he shifted to the top of his bed and leaned over to look. Sure enough, a gun was taped behind the headboard and he pulled it off carefully and brought it up to him. It probably shouldn't have surprised him that she had an arsenal hidden in the tower but it was endearing, though in a twisted way, that she would deem his room worthy of hiding something. While plenty of people would imagine that her hiding a gun behind his bed would actually mean she was uncomfortable, Bruce knew it meant the opposite. In Natasha's own way it said she was comfortable in his room and that she planned on being in there, and wherever she planned on being then weapons were sure to be stashed. "What else?" he questioned as he moved to his closet and pulled out his 'runaway' bag, as Natasha had deemed it. He had left it behind since he had left straight after Sokovia and he hadn't thought of it until now.

"That's it, Doctor."

He sighed and double checked that the safety on the gun was on before he opened the bag to tuck it inside. It wasn't the most useful, but he supposed one gun was better than no gun, so he gave a small shake of his head before put it inside, then he lifted the bag and left his own room. His next stop was Natasha's room and he pushed the door open. He wasn't entirely sure if she had actually left anything behind inside but he went in nonetheless and moved towards her bedroom. It wasn't as though she had gone on the run with anything besides a knife and what she was wearing so at this point he figured anything was useful. The closet was barren and he shook his head before pulling open drawers. Once again he found nothing but air and he rubbed his eyes in frustration. When Natasha cleaned out her stuff, she _really_ cleaned out her stuff, though he supposed that was what happened after a life as a spy and assassin. "FRIDAY...does she have _anything_ here besides that gun?"

"I'm afraid not," FRIDAY answered, "though the boss does have a few works in progress meant for Miss Romanoff."

That was at least something interesting but given that he was trying to do this without Tony's knowledge, he wasn't exactly stealthy enough to go taking things out from under his best friend's nose, and he imagined that Tony would be less than thrilled when Bruce not only disappeared, but disappeared with his pet projects.

He would just have to make do with what he had and he zipped the bag shut and made for the elevator. "FRIDAY, when Tony asks where I am...just tell him I went to find to find Natasha."

"Certainly, Doctor."

This would be a long trip.

* * *

Natasha stood inside the shambles of what had formerly been Bruce's home in Bahir, India. It was discouraging enough to once again be on the run and once again be on her own, but she had long ago accepted that she was fated for scenarios such as this. To make matters more depressing, even though she was wearing her own torn and dirtied jeans from days prior, she was now clad in one of the scientist's long untouched and musty button-up shirts. It wasn't much, but it was something to make her less prone to the sense of foreboding that had overcome her since General Ross had begun to come after her. It felt pathetic and pitiful to cling to the remnants left behind in her heart of a man who had disappeared without a trace and without a word of goodbye just over half a year ago.

Outwardly she had given no notion to anyone of how hollow she felt after he had left, though Tony seemed to know well enough, likely because he missed Bruce as much as she herself did. Natasha didn't feel like she deserved to play the role of some brokenhearted fool, not when she had given him such a perfect reason to leave her behind. The impossible choices always seemed to fall to her and the choice to either run away with Bruce or force his transformation into The Hulk had been the hardest of any she had ever felt compelled to make. If they ran and the world had ended then it would have left Bruce and The Hulk to likely still be alive and unforgivably alone, and he would have hated himself. She knew when she forced that transformation that it would be the end of anything they might have become, the end of any chance for her own happy ending, an ending she wasn't allowed to have because of her own decisions. He had told her once that if she ever pushed him too far that he would still believe that what little she had to offer him emotionally was enough.

But he left after Ultron. He had never come back and it became crystal clear after that, that what little she had to offer in an emotional sense would never truly be enough, just the way she had told him would one day happen.

She had needed to give up her heart's desire in Sokovia, give up the desire to be with Bruce for however long they may have lasted so that he could live with himself after it was all over. Ironically it was the most selfless act that she had ever managed to perform given that she also needed that fight to be able to move on with him, and though it felt entirely unfair, she supposed that the worst things were done with even the best intentions. She could live with the fact he was alive and that he hated her. She accepted that would be the outcome when she kissed him and told him the basics of how she felt. Adoration had been all she was willing and able to part with at the time and it felt like so little now that she had lost him. Day after day, she had given him pieces of herself, pieces that he took with him when he left. Pieces she knew that she probably wouldn't get back and that she wasn't certain she even wanted returned to her. After all, they were pieces that Bruce himself had managed to put together in her; he deserved to keep them. She also knew she took some of his pieces too, and he had left them behind along with her.

And now Natasha stood alone with those thoughts as she watched a silhouette approach the beaten down house. She had noticed the possible intruder when they were much farther away, but until now, she hadn't been sure if they actually intended to come to her rundown abode. A day and a half of her programming running amok and another day and a half in the crumbling shack left her twitchy and prone to violent reactions, so she waited by the front door with the only weapon she had on her person, a sleek and simple combat knife that Bruce had given to her what felt like a lifetime ago. She schooled her breaths to be even and silent as she awaited the coming footsteps. It seemed clear that the person had no interest in stealth, though she didn't imagine at this point that Ross was interested in covert tactics. He was coming for her to try and get to Bruce but Ross couldn't see the flaw in his plans; he didn't know that she had completely and utterly screwed up everything in order to save Bruce from himself, in order to be able to be in a place Bruce deserved in case she _hadn't_ ruined everything.

It seemed like forever as the person hesitated outside the door and she felt her heart begin to race. When you were strung out on no sleep, no food, and a homicidal personality programmed into yourself for seventy-two hours, it became near impossible to keep calm and even more impossible to remain stoic. The door slowly swung open and she didn't hesitate as the intruder stepped inside; she grabbed a hold of them and slammed them into the wall just inside the door. Natasha's vision was unclear, bathed in red for just a moment as her programming came forward, ready to deliver swift death, or she was, right up until she realized who it was.

She froze with the knife just a breath away from his chest and her hand began to shake violently. Her breathing hitched slightly as the malicious tendencies of her reddened vision faded and cleared. Slowly the invader's face came more clearly into her sight and she wondered for that very moment if she was hallucinating. The programming slipped back into the depths of her mind as she stared with uncertainty.

"Natasha..."

For just a brief moment, she was torn, torn between kissing Bruce Banner or actually stabbing him. She chose neither option as she slowly pulled the knife back to her side and took a few steps backwards. She wasn't quite at the point of going without sleep or food for him to purely be a visage of her mind and he refused to fade as instead he stepped forward, placing his hands gently on either side of her face. Bruce's brown eyes looked full of sorrow and self-loathing and she _knew_ because she saw much the same in the mirror when she dared to look into one. He didn't say anything, he just stared at her as though he couldn't really believe she was standing there just as much as she couldn't believe he was.

"What are you doing here, Bruce?" she questioned, barely managing to keep emotion from breaking through her voice and her face.

It felt near impossible to keep up the charade, even harder when he spoke, "Don't do that...don't hide. That's not fair, Natasha."

She ignored his request and instead asked again, "What are you doing here?"

"You really thought I wouldn't come?" Bruce asked with sheer disbelief, "this is happening because of me."

She reached her hand up tentatively to his cheek and her thumb traced over his bottom lip, but that was a weakness she just couldn't afford and she pulled her own hand back. "So you came to play the white knight? I don't need one," she assured him, "I've done just fine on my own."

"Natasha, that's not—I'm here because I care."

She was forced to chew on her lower lip before she managed to overcome her inability to speak and when she did, her voice sounded foreign to her own ears as her rasp of a voice escaped. All the hurt and anger came flooding back as she said the words aloud while she took a few steps back from Bruce again. "I believed that once before, Bruce, when you said it would be enough," she murmured out. She saw the hurt in his eyes in an instant and she shook her head as she looked away, "You lied..."

She could see him trying not to react badly to her accusation, she could see the way he was having some internal fight with himself over what to say, and after a few seconds he seemed to have come up with what he wanted to go with, "I never lied to you, I promise I didn't. It just turned out that it wasn't you who wasn't enough, it was me..." That left Natasha speechless for a moment as she stared at Bruce. She couldn't even come up with a response as he took slow steps towards her again. She didn't back away when he hesitantly put his hand back on the side of her face, mostly because she was already back against a wall at this point, there were no further steps to take. "Natasha...you'll always be enough," came his attempt at reassurance.

"I don't want you here," she murmured out as she turned her face away, "but I guess it's rude to tell you to leave your own home, so I'll go instead." It was a lie, admittedly, she wanted him here more than anything but he _couldn't_ be here.

"Natasha..." She shrugged out of his grasp and moved passed him towards the door, only pausing when his fingertips gripped her wrist almost with an almost feather-light touch, "Please, don't..."

Natasha shifted her eyes back to his and that was the biggest mistake she could have made. She had been expecting to see the lie in his eyes when she finally made full eye contact with him but instead—instead she saw warmth; warmth and sadness, but not the anger and hatred she felt she deserved from him. Every second she stared, every second that neither of them said a word, it was like her walls weren't just being pulled down but crumbling into ruins. It was painfully silent as he moved just a little closer and took her hand within the hand that _wasn't_ currently stroking her cheekbone with its thumb. "So...you're going with the ' _it's not you, it's me_ ' line, here?" and it was probably mean, and cruel but she _had_ to get him to leave, or get him to let her leave. "You're supposed to be _angry_ , not sorry!" she growled out as she yanked her hand from his, "you're supposed to come back because you _want_ to, because you _want_ to see me, not because you think have to and not because—"

"I didn't know!" he interrupted quickly and that actually stunned her into further silence, "I didn't know, not until I was already back..."

Natasha could feel her mask slip before she could stop it and the words slipped out quietly, "You came back...?"

Bruce's nod was slow, slow and honest, and she wished he was lying to her. Everything would have been easier if he hadn't come back of his own volition. He left the distance between them that she had placed as he spoke again, "I missed you, and I _am_ angry, but what I feel for you—"

"Don't, Bruce..." she murmured out as she turned away, "...just don't." She needed her mask back and she couldn't rebuild it while she was looking right at him.

Unfortunately, Bruce seemed to know that too, because he came around in front of her again and obliterated her attempt. "Look at me," his words came out soft and gentle and she looked _towards_ his face but not directly at him. " _At_ me, Natasha, look _at_ me..." came the more firmly stated order.

She did, which was yet another mistake to add to her rather large list of bad choices because she was too tired, far too tired to keep herself from falling apart for much longer. "What I did...that's not something that you can just get over, what I did—"

"What you did, Natasha, was horrible," Bruce stated for her. It was a little like taking a knife to the gut and she supposed he could see the way she grimaced a little at the words because his eyes softened exponentially. "It was the worst thing you could have done to me," he told her next, effectively trumping the soft look of his eyes, and she swallowed a little dryly in response. It was one thing to know that herself but it was a completely other thing for him to say it to her face. Still, she kept her eyes level with his and let him say what he needed to say. "But there's a reason why it was more horrible that it was _you_ and not somebody else. There's a reason I got angry and betrayed enough to leave..." He wasn't done, she knew that, and she was honestly expecting harsher words than just simple facts. She let him continue because he deserved to be able to finally tell her that he hated her. "I tried to tell myself that I didn't leave because I was angry. I told myself that I left and stayed away because I was protecting you, because I didn't want your life endangered because of me or the Other Guy...but the truth is that I was so mad that I almost hated you..." She released the tiniest breath at the comment and his hands were once again on either side of her face after her reaction and he pressed his forehead against hers, "But I can't hate you and I don't really want to anyways..."

Everything would just be easier if he _did_ hate her. The words left her lips before she could stop them, because she needed to stop them, and yet everything just seemed to be spiraling out of her control with his unexpected arrival, "I'm sorry..."

"I know..."

"Go back to wherever you were hiding, Bruce..." she told him as she placed a hand on his chest just over his heart, "just disappear again...you can't be here."

Bruce's expression looked a little more alarmed at her words and she wasn't entirely sure what to make of it until he spoke, "Natasha...what did you do?" Her expression must have shone her confusion because he emphasized on it, "Tell me you didn't give away your location here..."

It all made a little more sense now and she shook her head at his question, "No..." In fact, she had abandoned Tony's jet in Nepal. She felt her brow wrinkle almost immediately after she answered the question and then she gave him a slightly uncertain expression, "Which begs the question...how did _you_ know I was here?"

He held up the postcard he had sent her but it still didn't make any sense how he would just come to that conclusion. He seemed to see that the confusion was still there and he finally answered with his words, "You left that in my room...along with, you know, the—the Hulk toy..."

His words when he mentioned the Hulk stuffed animal came out with so much distaste that she probably would have laughed under any other circumstance. Instead she only found more confusion because she didn't _remember_ leaving the postcard. That thing had been gathering dust in her dresser since he had given it to her and she frowned. "I don't remember doing that..." she admitted, "or...going into your room at all. I just remember waking up in there..."

"You didn't know you left it?"

Natasha shook her head.

"You knew where you were going even before you knew where you were going," Bruce commented with a hint of sad amusement, "but it seems like maybe you did want me to find you..."

He could be right but then again she hadn't imagined he would actually come back, and she likely hadn't thought he would when she supposedly left the postcard. It was probably just a lapse in her judgment when she wasn't completely herself. Putting the program back into her had been exhausting and confusing, and she hadn't remembered any of it after beginning or until she finally woke up. Finally she just shook her head, took his hand into hers this time, and stepped as close to him as possible with her other hand on his chest. "Maybe you're right..." she admitted, "but it doesn't matter now." She felt the _thumpthumpthump_ of his heart beneath her hand and she looked right into his eyes before she spoke again, "If you care, Bruce...if you care as much as you say you do, then I need you to do something..."

"Anything..." he insisted.

The look on his face was one of adoration and their faces were closer, her nose just a few centimeters from his, and she made the request then and there, "Kiss me, then let me leave..." Her mouth had moved just within reach of Bruce's and he looked conflicted in the worst of ways, much like he had back in her room in Clint's home, though she sincerely hoped it was only over one of those requests and not both of them.

Just before their lips were about to meet, a single word slipped through his, "No." Natasha closed her eyes in frustration as his thumb once again grazed over her lower lip before she heard him speak, "At least to the part where I let you leave..."

Before she had much time to react to that he took her breath away, and any words of protest she might have had, just by closing the minuscule distance between their lips. For a few seconds she completely forgot that he was supposed to be mad at her, that she was supposed to be mad at him, and that a crazed military general was after both of them. Instead she leaned in and pressed herself closer, not that it got much closer when there was hardly a gap between their bodies to begin with, and his fingers that were interlocked with her own let go. His now free hand came to rest on her lower back and kept her pressed against him.

They had shared plenty of kisses, but even when those moments had gained heat, they had never been quite like this one. Bruce was kissing her with that same desperation she had kissed him with in Sokovia. She _knew_ that desperation. It was the kind where you were practically begging the person not to leave you, not to hate you; the kind that said you had, currently were, or were about to make a mistake. _Oh hell..._ it was too long before she remembered she shouldn't let this continue. She let him kiss her rather than making him stop because she missed him far more than she wanted to admit.

Instead Natasha parted her lips to let him deepen it. If she weren't so tired then she might have had more self-control, at least that was what she told herself. It was _not_ because she still cared and it was _not_ because she still completely and utterly adored the man. The liplock was something she could equate to floating back to the surface after drowning within life itself for the last six months. It took every effort to drag herself back into the depths, as she pulled away at the last second before their tongues could mingle and she would completely lose any sense of what needed to be done.

"Natasha..." Bruce's voice released her name in a hoarse little whisper that only wreaked further havoc on her state of mind. They were still as close as physically possible and she couldn't convince herself to open her eyes when he rested his forehead against hers. "This isn't just your fight. I can't let you leave and do this alone anymore..." he told her next. She honestly couldn't think of a response, a way to make him hate her that would convince him to go or to at least let her go, so instead she kept silent. Bruce seemed to take that as a sound reason to ask a question, "Why did you reprogram yourself? You hated every second of it, so why would you do that to yourself all over again?"

"I..." and what would be the best way to even answer that? Natasha disentangled herself from the half-embrace they had going and moved across the room. She could feel his eyes following her and she could practically hear his heart beating too fast, not overly fast, but fast nonetheless. "I needed her..." she finally admitted, "when Ross called, I knew. Killing is one thing when—when I don't have a choice, when I _need_ to do it to save a life, or my own life," she explained. "It never used to be that way. Before Clint I _was_ my programming, and even after he took me to SHIELD, I was still an assassin," she pointed out next, "I've been trying to change, to be better but I—I just—I needed to be ruthless again, I needed to not feel anything again..."

"No...no, Natasha," Bruce told her quickly, moving towards her again and gripping her arms in his hands. He succeeded in at least grounding her in place, "you just had to tell somebody, that's all you had to do. You just had to ask for help instead of dealing with all of this on your own!"

"What, you mean like you did?" she bit out before she could stop it. She could see him visibly flinch at her accusatory tone and she felt terrible in an instant. She took a shaky breath as she shook her head, "I—I didn't mean that..." Natasha honestly wasn't sure if that statement was a lie or the truth, or possibly some mixture of both.

Bruce didn't look angered by her comment, just sad, and she rubbed tiredly at her eyes as he pulled her in closer. She rested her cheek on his shoulder without thought and listened to him take a few short breaths before he spoke again, "You did...and it's okay."

"Why aren't you angrier?" she finally questioned after a few seconds.

Bruce released a tiny little sigh at the question but at least he gave her an honest answer, "I am angrier." She gave the slightest nod to that. "But it's remarkably hard to be that angry when you look..." and he didn't bother to finish that before he asked a question instead, "when was the last time you slept?"

When _was_ the last time she slept? Given that she was barely staying conscious leaning against him at this given moment and that she was too exhausted to fight him on one of them leaving for more than a minute at a time, too long was probably the correct answer. "I don't know...not since I left Tony and Clint," she finally answered.

"Shit..." Bruce muttered out with a fair amount of frustration and disbelief, "Natasha, that's over three days ago! You need sleep, _now_."

"I can't."

Bruce only got more frustrated with the answer she gave him without letting her explain, "A couple more hours and you're going to start hallucinating, then running or not running, you won't even be able to protect yourself let alone anyone else..."

Natasha took a deep breath before she forced herself to remove herself from his embrace, "That's not—I meant _I can't_...I try to sleep and the second I do, my programming takes over within seconds and we've all seen how that's turned out..."

"You're staying awake to stay in control..." he mumbled out. When she nodded she watched him run his fingertips through his hair with thought. "But I'm with you now," he insisted and she frowned at that which made him continue, "I got rid of your programming once, Natasha, just go to sleep...I'll find a way to bring you back out if it takes over again...and I'll keep an eye out, I promise."

She should have told him the truth, that it wouldn't matter soon anyways, but she didn't. Bruce sat down on the ragged little couch and she gave up fighting him on any of the matters. She would just wait long enough and then make an escape, and so she silently walked back to _his_ room. She could feel his eyes follow her quizzically but she didn't explain herself, she merely paused in the doorway. "For the record, Bruce," she stated without glancing back at him, "it _was_ me that wasn't enough—that would never be enough...but I would have tried forever."

Natasha could feel his eyes on her back as she stepped into the room, got into his bed and curled in on herself atop the covers. She knew she had left him speechless but it was something she had needed to say given that she probably wouldn't get another chance. She wouldn't make the mistake of disappearing somewhere where anyone might actually have the chance of finding her, not again. She would stay in here for a little while, just long enough to put him at ease, and then she would disappear.

The only flaw with her escape plan came when she fell into the depths of sleep within seconds of laying down.

* * *

 **The last scene wasn't originally part of this chapter but I tacked it on to be nice since it took me twelve days to give you guys an update.**


	6. Chapter 6

**Okay, I thought that the last chapter seemed much shorter than it was supposed to be and in the words of Thor, some foul form of sorcery deleted the scene between Bruce leaving and when he finds Natasha. When I moved the reunion scene into the chapter I must have replaced the other scene...whoops. So it'll be the first scene here.**

 **Chapter 5** :

" _Pain and suffering are always inevitable  
for a large intelligence and a deep heart."  
-Crime and Punishment_

It had been an hour and a half since Tony left Bruce on his request that he 'needed to think about a few things'. The scientist had yet to return to the lab which was the most surprising thing of all. The other man had yet to leave for more than short periods of time, determined to find something, anything that might give them a clue to Natasha's whereabouts. Pepper had even taken to doing her work on her laptop in the lab, likely for the sake of both their sanity, and he did appreciate her show of support. For the next thirty minutes Tony felt his eyes shifting to the clock on more than one occasion, usually only two or three minutes having passed before he was looking again, but Bruce never appeared.

Once it hit the two hour mark, Tony was much more worried and he finally asked the question, "FRIDAY, is Bruce okay?"

"I regret to inform you, boss, but Doctor Banner left the tower one hour and forty-five minutes ago."

Tony froze, blinking rapidly for well over a minute as that information sunk in completely.

"He asked that, should you ask for his location, I tell you he went to find Miss Romanoff."

He groaned in an instant, running his hand through his hair as Pepper gave him a worried look. Pepper spoke first, "How far could he have gotten in less than two hours?"

"Far enough," Tony grumbled out in frustration, "Bruce knows how to disappear, if anything he's proved that fairly well for the last six months, and he knows how to do it quietly. A lot like a certain jet thief we know."

He watched Pepper close her laptop as she stood up and took a seat on the chair by his desk, then she voiced the question on her mind, "Why would he go alone? He knows that you and everyone else is looking for her and worried about her, that you'd all do anything to find her."

Tony couldn't really speak for Bruce but he had a feeling he knew, at least partially, why the man would do it alone. "He's doing the same thing Natasha was doing when she took off...he's trying to keep everyone else out of the line of fire."

"Nick Fury also gave Doctor Banner several files earlier when you were speaking to Mister Barton," FRIDAY piped up.

" _Now_ you tell me?" he grumbled out, tapping the keys of the computer and bringing the files up.

The first file was Denmark and Pepper was wide-eyed as she looked at the information. He moved through it as quickly as possible but Norway only proved to be worse. "Oh my God..." he heard her mumble. By the time they made it through Estonia, or lack of information from Estonia, even Tony was aware how bad it all really was. "Tony, she's going to get herself killed..." came Pepper's murmured comment.

That was an understatement if he had ever heard one. "I'm a lot less worried about her getting killed and much more worried about her getting captured, that's the only reason why she's getting the jump on them as much as she is. Bruce going after her alone was the biggest mistake he could have made. She's leading them to her and if he really does know where she is then she'll get them both caught," he mumbled out. "FRIDAY, connect me to Rogers..."

"Making the call now, boss."

Tony rubbed at his face and waited. Seconds turned into a minute before the call connected and Steve appeared. "Stark, is it good or bad news?"

"I suppose we can consider it a bit of both," Tony told the other man, "Bruce was back when I got here. He didn't know about anything that happened though, he was just, you know, back."

"He's okay?"

"Depends on your definition of okay but for the most part, yeah," Tony answered honestly, "though he was a lot less okay when he found out about everything."

"Understandable..." Steve looked a little relieved to hear of Bruce's return and then he spoke again, "But I take it that was the good news..."

"Right, the bad news is that he also left again almost two hours ago," Tony informed the man. Now Steve was doing much the same thing that Tony had been doing before; running his hand through his hair. "He seems to think he knows where to find Natasha and he didn't hesitate for a second to jump on it."

"And you didn't think stopping him or going with him might be a good idea?"

"Gee, now why didn't I think of that?" he retorted, sarcasm dripping from his voice. "If I'd known he was going to rabbit on me then I would have slapped a tracking device on him. Of course, given that this is becoming a trend then maybe I should have done that ages ago," Tony answered with a roll of his eyes.

He could see Steve holding back a bit of frustration at the comment before the man sighed and moved the conversation on, "You know Bruce best. Where would he go?"

"I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that it's wherever everyone's favorite redhead is."

"Tony..." Pepper chided with a shake of her head.

Tony rolled his eyes, "If I knew where the man went then I clearly wouldn't have bothered with this phone call. Bruce obviously figured out something that the rest of us couldn't and he rolled with it because he's afraid she'll wind up dead or captured, so I can't sit here say I wouldn't have done the same damn thing."

Steve looked a little more somber with that comment and he gave a grim little nod in response, "You know...eventually all of you need to learn that taking care of stuff like this on your own is a really terrible idea."

Tony couldn't exactly disagree with him. "It's becoming alarmingly obvious that all of us still have a few issues in the team work department when it comes to personal vendettas. Though in the defense of the rest of us, we weren't team players before Loki tried to take over the planet. Hell, most of us didn't even know each other. Natasha won the award of knowing at least two of us before that battle and the irony of that was that she had no care for any of the team besides Barton at the time. Look at her now. Barton named a kid after her, I consider her one of my most trusted friends and I know you do too, Thor liked her enough to tell her to get laid once, and she's recreating one very fascinating rendition of Beauty and the Beast with Bruce."

Steve huffed out a solemn little laugh in response.

"I think the point of that entire spiel is that no matter how much any of you change, when things go wrong then most people are going to revert to what they know has always worked best for them in the past..." Pepper chimed in, "Tony's proof of _that_."

Tony gave her a pointed look before he chuckled, "She's right. We have reversion issues. You understand reversion issues, Spangles. There's a reason you wear chinos during your down time."

He faked a cry of anguish when Pepper smacked him on the arm.

"I get it. I told Natasha that I did," Steve told him before giving an amused shake of his head, "even I can admit to the occasional...reversion." Tony chuckled at the comment and waited for the rest. "That's the problem though isn't it? The past just keeps on coming back and kicking us in the ass."

"This is usually the part where I chastise you for your language, but given that that's actually the most accurate way of putting these particular circumstances, I'm going to let that one slide."

"Gee, thanks..."

Tony smirked and leaned back in his chair. "That was sort of the point of this call though," he piped up, "you know, to not be the third member of The Lone Gunmen."

Steve's brow wrinkled, "How can there be more than one Lone Gunman?"

Tony released a groan, "Gun- _men,_ Rogers, not Gun- _man_. How have you been back this long and _still_ not watched the X-Files?" After another elbow from Pepper and he sighed and moved on, "But that's not the point. What I was trying to say was that I'm going to keep you up to date with whatever I know. If I know something, you'll know it, and when I figure out where they are then you should also be aware that I'm plotting a very treasonous kidnapping of your star-spangled ass."

It was effective. Steve chuckled and gave a nod, "Weird as this is to say...I'm looking forward to it."

"Right, well, square deal then. I'll call you when I've got something solid," Tony informed him. He flicked the screen off before it could really get friendly, sappy and more awkward than it already was. Pepper gave him that proud little look and he rolled his eyes almost immediately, "Shush, woman."

She laughed in an instant, "I won't say a word."

Tony crossed his arms over his chest as he tried to figure out where to go from here. "I'm serious about the tracker thing. I'm going to embed one in Bruce when he's sleeping next time I see him. I'd put one in Natasha but I've already seen firsthand that she'll just dig her fingers in and rip it out. I'll just come up with a way to track their DNA using satellites. Course...I'd probably need Bruce's help with that—"

"No," Pepper told him in her no-nonsense tone.

"We could avoid these situations, Pep, think about it..." Tony pointed out as he waggled his eyebrows, "no more runaway science bros and assassins."

"No," she echoed her former answer with a slightly amused smile.

"Fine, fine. I was just kidding anyways...sort of."

Pepper shook her head, rolled her eyes, then leaned over and kissed him, "Yeah, I'll bet you were."

* * *

Bruce kept shifting his eyes towards Natasha's back every few minutes for the last hour, especially when he was gathering up his 'runaway bag' that he had ceremoniously dropped at the front door when Natasha nearly put a knife in his chest. Her words just before sinking into his bed bothered him in more than just their actual meaning. It had just sounded too final and he kept expecting her to be gone if he looked away too long. And the kiss? He hadn't intended the kiss to be that intense. He wasn't sure if they still had the ability to be that way together and he certainly hadn't expected her to kiss him back with equal fervor. They were a mixture of pain, hurt and anger; being in the same room had been much like throwing gasoline on a fire, they were a chemical mixture for disaster. The fire burned in different directions, sure, but it burned in waves. Waves of pain, then anger, and the hurt was always there just lingering below the surface. Then...the kiss. The first two waves rippled through again after but the kiss lingered on even now. It had been a mix of all three, tangled up with love and adoration, and the kiss turned out to be the worst pain of all. For him it had been a move of desperation, an attempt to show her he still cared and to convince her not to run away on her own. He just wished he knew what that kiss had been to her.

He once again looked over towards Natasha's back, feeling his brow furrow when he saw her start to move around. For a moment he chalked it up to the usual nightmares and went to turn away, then it became less shifts in her movement and leaned more towards thrashing. Bruce frowned but he didn't move yet, not because he didn't want to, but mostly because he wasn't sure he still had that right. He ran his hands over his face to ease his nerves and in the second that his eyes were off of her, he heard the _thud_. He was on his feet in a second as he turned back to the room, "Natasha?"

Natasha was on the floor with her eyes squeezed shut and her breathing was strained as she writhed on the ground. He moved into the room at a run, the former hesitation to go to her long gone. She was laying on her side, curled in on herself, and pained gasps escaped her lips every few seconds with sweat beading from her forehead. He couldn't be sure if it was some panic induced nightmare that made it happen, actual physical pain, or if it was her trying to fight off her programming but either way Bruce sat down with his back against the bed and pulled her to him, pressing her back tightly against his chest.

"Breathe...in and out, Natasha," he ordered softly, "breathe with me..." And he wasn't sure if she was _really_ awake. "Look at me...you're okay," he tried again, "you just need to breathe, slow and steady." It felt like ages before she rested her head back on his shoulder and actually met his eyes. Her breathing was still erratic and he held on a little tighter as she slowly took more even breaths that matched his own. "You're okay..." he offered up one more time.

Several minutes passed before she stopped shaking and sweating and her breathing fully returned to normal. Bruce still didn't know the cause, and though he wanted to ask, the idea came far too late. If it was her programming then it seemed she had been able to fight it back, otherwise she wouldn't still be in his arms, but he had seen her have several nightmares and not one had ever left her in the state she had just been in. Natasha's eyes had drifted closed again and she was sound asleep against him. Truthfully, he wasn't entirely sure she had ever been fully-awake to begin with. It wasn't the most comfortable position and he shifted her legs so that they were sideways over the side of his own legs. She shifted her upper body sideways on her own and he felt heat flush to his face when she wriggled to make herself comfortable, then she pressed her cheek against his shoulder and those tiny warm puffs of breath hit his neck. Her one arm draped itself behind his neck and across his shoulders while her other hand had come to rest on his chest.

She looked relaxed for the first time since Bruce arrived a few hours ago and he didn't have the heart to move her. Natasha's jeans were tattered and covered with a mixture of dirt and dried blood. He imagined her shirt, the one she had replaced with one of his own, had probably been in an even worse state and while she had clearly wiped her skin down, it still held discoloration in patches from the same blood and grime. Her hair was longer and straighter, yet despite her disheveled state, she was as breathtaking now as she always was. It felt strange to still miss her when she was sitting right on his lap but the feeling that she had intended on leaving rather than falling asleep stuck with him. He was almost certain she hadn't planned to stay because it was something he himself had done on more than one occasion. This time she was trying to protect him but her body and mind betrayed her. It was impossible to be mad over it when he had done the exact same thing for the same reasoning six months ago.

It all seemed to make more sense now that the roles had been reversed in some sense. In her own way Natasha had been trying to protect him from himself in Sokovia and in turn he had left to protect her. Now he was the one trying to save her from herself and she was the one trying to run to save him. It was ironic in a not-so-comical sense. Their entire interaction before she had fallen asleep had been one contradiction after another. Natasha wanted one of them gone, yet they were both still here. Bruce cared about her, yet he was still angry with her. He thought it was him who wasn't enough, yet she thought it was her. It was painfully obvious that the feelings he had and the ones she had hadn't diminished when he was gone, if anything, it was like they had gone from a simmer to a boil. He was one train wreck still on the tracks, and Natasha was another train wreck coming from the opposite direction; Both of them were barely chugging along until they collided into one another.

Bruce found himself at a crossroads with her in this very moment, unsure if whatever they had together had just been some beautiful mistake, or if there was still something between them that could be mended. As he stared down at her peaceful expression, her face was lacking its usual mask of make-up and it was one of the first times he noticed the small trail of light colored freckles that flitted across bridge of her nose, something he thought he should have noticed before given the many times they had been much closer than this. Despite that she had told him more than she had likely told anyone besides Clint, he knew there was still a plethora of things that remained unknown about her, though that wasn't even entirely her fault. There were many things that Natasha didn't even know about herself; she had told him once before that she spent her whole life fighting through fabricated memories implanted in her head.

His father had ruined his ability to have any real hope that anything could ever work out in his favor and whatever what might be between himself and Natasha was no exception. The dark circles under both of their eyes, caused by each other, were a fairly decent indicator that they had always been doomed to fail. It was the strangest thing that as much as she hurt him, the happiness she brought him was a hell of a lot more than the pain she caused. Maybe if he had come back sooner then they could have fixed whatever they had but he wasn't so sure now, not when his enemies had put her on the run, hurt her, and drained her to such an extent that she had fallen asleep in less than sixty seconds. Despite Tony and Pepper insisting that this wasn't his fault, he couldn't really help feeling like it was.

If Bruce had never kissed her eight months ago, she would have never become a target, at least not a target of _his_ enemies.

* * *

Reality was slow to breathe its life back into him when he felt movement and Bruce slowly and hazily blinked his eyes open. He didn't remember falling asleep but his arms were wrapped tightly around Natasha and he was fully aware that she was awake. Through the dim morning light fizzling in through the worn walls and windows of his bedroom, he could see that her head was wedged under his chin, her fingertips had the soft fabric of his shirt gripped like a vice, and her other arm hung around his shoulders. The reality that she would be pissed that he fell asleep when he had promised to keep an eye out sunk in, but he supposed it really held no merit now and she didn't seem to think so either given her lack of comment on it. There hadn't been an attack and he had just been trying to help her; and considering she likely knew he was now awake too, she apparently wasn't going to fault him for it like he thought she would have.

She still seemed so tired as her head slowly shifted from where it lay and she gazed up and into his eyes. He felt terrible all over again. Natasha looked like a mess with dark circles under her eyes where her usually flawless complexion normally lay. One of Bruce's hands crept up of its own accord, and instead of his palm, he let his knuckles slowly drift down her cheek adoringly. That same adoration that he saw in her eyes in Sokovia was there again for the first time since his arrival, though he supposed that was because her mask had yet to rebuild after waking, at least that also meant that her programming hadn't broken free. He was just a breath away from kissing her for the second time when he froze. That same hand shifted to move her hair aside and his eyes stared widely at her neck. "What the hell is that?" he questioned.

Bruce watched as Natasha's eyes narrowed just a little with slight uncertainty before her own fingertips rose and brushed over the strange blackish-gray looking veins on her neck. She shifted off of him and onto her feet before she moved towards the mirror, wiping off the dust with her hand and angling her face so that the side of her neck was in view. He watched as she studied them, tracing their path with her fingers to just below her jawline, then she closed her eyes and released a tiny breath of displeasure. For just a moment she seemed to forget Bruce was there until he got up and moved behind her. She opened her eyes and watched as he took a closer look at her neck and she didn't say a word as his fingers pressed over the skin that was normally so perfect, instead she tilted her head to the side and gave him better access and a better view.

"Natasha...what is that?" he asked for the second time, unable to keep the worry from showing in his voice and his face.

Natasha turned and met his eyes before the honest answer left her lips, "Poison."

His heart dropped into stomach at the single word and he remembered Tony saying a toxin had stopped her heart twice after their escape from the Avengers' facility. "But you've been fine for three days...Tony said you made a blood cleanser—"

"I did and it didn't work," she told him quietly, "all it did was slow it down."

"Slow it down from—slow it down from what, exactly?" Bruce dared to ask as she studied it further. He pulled at the collar of the shirt, his shirt that she was wearing, and watched the way those blackish-gray veins formed a path down her collarbone. "Natasha, how far down does that goes?" he questioned without waiting for the first answer. She unbuttoned the shirt, shrugged it off her shoulders and left her skin exposed as she let the shirt hang on her arms. He followed the path with his eyes and his fingers. It trailed from just below her jawline, down her neck, over her collarbone, and continued a wavering path down her entire side, spiraling out in different directions until he reached the small stitched up wound on her lower waist. "It's killing you, isn't it?" he dared to ask, finally shifting his eyes back to hers as the reality of what she had been hiding last night truly sunk in, "that's why you wanted me to go, why you wanted to leave..."

Natasha didn't say a word to either deny or validate what he said, but her eyes told him he was right as she pulled the shirt back on and buttoned it up, then his name came out softly from her lips, "Bruce..."He backed away from her in an instant and turned around, rubbing his hands over his face to try and calm down, though it was to no avail. He released a few shaky breaths before her hand clamped down on his forearm. "You were never supposed to be here," came her next words, still soft, thick with worry. Worry for _him_ rather than for herself.

Bruce turned around and faced her within seconds of her comment and the anger bubbled out before he could quell it, "You weren't going to say anything, you weren't going to tell _anyone!_ " She didn't react in any way, not with her expression and not with words, and that only made it all worse. "You didn't come here to hide, you came here to die, didn't you?" he questioned, unable to keep the anguish from his voice.

His emotional state finally broke her impassive face and now she looked almost apologetic when the single word left her lips, "Yes..."

"We need to go back, Natasha! Tony can—"

"Tony can't fix this, Bruce," Natasha insisted with a shake of her head, "it's a toxin, the blood cleanser was a long shot at best. The only way to stop it now is—"

"The anti-toxin..." he mumbled out in frustration. "What about whatever had the toxin on it? Tony could have made something from that...we still can make something from it."

Natasha just shook her head again at the comment as she moved into the living room and he found himself following after her as she spoke, "It would take a lot longer than three days to make an anti-toxin, I don't care how good you and Tony are... and it's not _just_ a toxin, it's some sort of mixed biotoxin strain between a neurotoxin and necrotoxin, and it wouldn't have mattered because—"

"It would have degraded within minutes..." he mumbled out. They were getting exceptional at interrupting each other and he dropped onto the couch and dropped his face into his hands again. "Tony would have still tried...I would have..."

He felt her presence even before her hands peeled his own away from his face and she was crouched down in front of him with a sad and weary little smile, "I couldn't put that on Tony. He couldn't have done anything, Bruce, and he would have blamed himself just like you're doing now..."

"Why would he—"

"Because the bullet laced with that toxin wasn't meant for me..."

The realization dawned on him in less than a second and he understood that she meant Tony wouldn't just blame himself for not being able to make a remedy, but because that bullet had been intended for him. "That's why you're still alive..." he whispered, "it was meant for Tony...for someone who wasn't..."

"Enhanced..." she finished with a small nod. Natasha was _dying_ right in front of him, you couldn't tell it just from looking at her, but now he knew what last night had been about. She seemed to know where his thoughts were going because she leaned her forehead against his and closed her eyes, "Bruce...this isn't your fault." He couldn't even look at her as she said the words and he felt like everything inside him was being ripped apart. "Bruce..." came her next whispered words. He felt her hands grasp either side of his face and he felt her breath warm on his lips but it only served to make him feel worse as she spoke one more time, "Look at me..."

He finally did and the adoration in her eyes sunk him even further into the depths of his horror at everything that had transpired. She pressed her lips to his softly but he only let it last seconds before he pulled away and shook his head. Then the question left his mouth that he wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer to, "How long...?"

"Bruce..."

"Just—just tell me how long..."

Natasha gave the tiniest sigh and her green eyes were full of worry, again it was for _him_ and not for herself, and one of her hands moved to her neck, just over top of those spiraling and ghoulish marks. "Not long...it's moving fast. An hour, maybe less..." and he felt the wetness dampen his face before her thumb grazed over his cheek and wiped it away, "Bruce..."

He was even more afraid of his next question, "What's going to happen?"

She was hesitating with the answer but after a few seconds she finally gave it to him, "What you see on my neck will—will travel up until it gets to my brain. It must have just missed the brain stem otherwise...well, we'd have noticed already."

"That's not an answer..."

"It's going to hurt and it's going to be slow..." she finally admitted, "and I didn't want you to know, or to see it, I didn't—I didn't want anyone to see this..."

Everything that happened between them to make them both angry at each other seemed almost petty now that she was dying and yet he still hadn't told her, he still hadn't been able to find the words to tell her how he felt about her and now he was out of time. "With you is the only place I want to be, no matter what..." he told her quietly, "Natasha...I never should have left..."

Her eyes looked just a little red at the edges as the green in them began to glisten a little and she gave him the saddest smile, "You had every right to leave and every right to be angry. I hurt you in the worst way and I don't blame you for leaving, I don't blame you for any of this, I promise."

"You don't...but I do," Bruce told her with a shake of his head. He could barely contain the depression lurking when she pushed him to sit against back of the couch and sat on top of him with her legs on either side of his own. "Natasha, don't—don't try to distract me..."

Her hands took a firm grip on either side of his face and she locked eyes with him again, "Bruce, I adored you then and I still adore you. This is _not_ your fault. And—and maybe the distraction is for me, not for you."

"You have no idea how much I love you..." he mumbled out. He hadn't meant to say it, it came out before he could stop it and Natasha's eyes showed she was as stunned by his admittance as he was. Her eyes were a little wide and unblinking as she stared at him and he wished for just a moment he could take it back, fear and doubt niggling in his mind, telling him she would run from him in an instant.

Or he did want to take it back, until she finally responded in a much softer tone than he had ever heard come from her, "No...no, I didn't..." She crushed his lips with her own in an instant and everything inside him hummed for just a moment. Her lips massaged his own open before he could form a thought and her tongue danced with his in ways they'd never previously done. It was almost mind numbing and his hands found her waist to pull her closer. It wasn't until his fingers touched the stitches on her side that she broke the kiss, a hiss of pain escaping from between her lips as she leaned her forehead against his shoulder. "You know...I was really okay with the dying thing until just a minute ago..." she murmured out.

Reality hit him again like a sack of bricks all over again and he wrapped his arms tightly around her. Even though he knew there wasn't, he said it anyways, "There has to be a way to fix this..."

"There isn't, there was never going to be enough time to fix it," came her answer. She had said it without the need to even think about it and he felt that pang in his heart that he hated. "You know, of all the ways I pictured going out, poison was pretty low on the list. A bullet, a knife, snapped neck, trauma. Poison...I never would have imagined that to be what did me in..." and she sounded almost amused in a rather somber sort of manner. Her next words were a surprise though, "You know, to me...love is just a fantasy dreamed up by children and it's something people fall in and out of easily, but..." Bruce felt his brow ruffle as she stopped speaking and then she pulled away and looked him in the eye. There was an intensity to her eyes, though her eyes were always intense, this was different a lot of ways. It was almost like an intense vulnerability staring back at him and then her words came out soft, "But I believe that sometimes you can find just _one_ person. One person that, no matter how broken and imperfect you are, somehow they're just as broken and imperfect. One person that...in some ways are broken exactly the way that you are, but in other ways...they have that one piece that can almost make you feel whole again."

Bruce stared at her, stunned by her words and a little baffled. Natasha wasn't someone who said things like that. She never once indicated she could or would feel that strongly. And less than a second later, she wrecked him completely.

"To me that one person is you."

Seven words. That was all it took from her to make him love her more than he thought possible and be completely decimated all at the same time. She pulled his lips back against hers and it was warm and wonderful. She took his breath away and turned his mind into a muddled mess within seconds as her lips moved against his, her hands slipped from his face to his neck, and her knees dug into the outer sides of his thighs.

It took a moment for conscious thought to return to him and Bruce remembered her words. She needed to be distracted and she was trying to distract him from one simple fact: She was dying.

"Natasha..." he mumbled against her lips. She pulled away in an instant and for just a moment he thought it was because she was heeding his mumble of her name as a warning. Instead her head jerked to the side and she was looking wildly at absolutely nothing. The first thought to cross his mind was that she had underestimated the toxin, that it had gone to her brain already. "What is it?" he questioned quickly.

She was on her feet in an instant and moving towards the window and _then_ he heard the noise she had seemed to hear before him. It was distant, but not distant enough. A whirring noise. More than one to be accurate. He moved behind her and glanced out the crack she created when she barely pulled the shabby curtain aside. Except he didn't _see_ anything. Natasha's voice was grim and steely when she spoke, "Run."

"What?"

"You need to go," Natasha told him as she turned her face to look at him. Her nose was just a fraction of a breadth away from his own.

What that noise was suddenly hit him and his eyes widened a little, "Those are helicopters...they managed to follow me?"

"I doubt it, otherwise they wouldn't have waited so long..." she murmured, "I think they've been sitting on this place all along, waiting..." It made some semblance of sense. Someone was watching the place, watching for _him_ to make an appearance, and he had walked right into it. "Bruce, you belong at the tower, you belong with your friend. I don't. I have no place in the world...I don't belong and I never did. Go, go now..." she murmured, giving him a slight push back and away from her.

He shook his head in an instant, moving right back in front of her and gripping her shoulders with each hand, "You belong there as much as anyone else. I'm not going anywhere without you—"

"I'm _dead_ no matter what," Natasha reminded him with a shake of her head, "whether I stay here or go with you, I'm dead. The only difference between running or staying is how many of them I can take with me. If you get caught then this, all of this...it's for nothing."

Bruce couldn't do it. He couldn't will himself to just leave her no matter what she said. "I think we both know the Other Guy might disagree with being captured so...I'm not leaving you. If you stay, I stay." He grabbed his 'runaway' bag and opened it up, pulling out the gun that belonged to her and handing it over. Those fierce green eyes blinked several times with obvious surprise as she took it, checked the clip and then replaced all in seconds. "It's all you left behind..." he tacked on.

And those eyes softened in an instant as they flickered back out the window and then back to him. "This is it..." she offered up in a rather numb tone, "the first time I'm going into a fight and knowing I'm not coming out of it..."

He remembered when she told him about that.

" _When you do the things that I do there's always the chance that you won't come back, but it's almost a guarantee that you won't if you stop believing you will."_

Natasha flicked the safety off the gun as she locked eyes with him and spoke, "We should probably at least get as far away from the town as we possibly can. Not that your digs aren't a good distance away from the other homes...but still..."

He gave a small nod of agreement and then she yanked him to her and crashed her lips into his for the third time. It was desperation mingled with a finality he wished he didn't have to think about. Her chest was pressed to his, her non-gun-wielding hand was tangled in his rather unruly hair at the base of his neck and her tongue weaved its own path of domination with his. Less than thirty seconds. That was as long as the amazingly overzealous kiss lasted before she pulled away with a few shaky breaths with a rather forlorn look on her face. It was the same hopelessness that he was feeling, but neither of them had time to dwell on that.

She gripped his wrist in her hand and dragged him with her out the back door. Even as he glanced over the top of his shambling home he could hear the whirring of the many helicopters closing in and they were never going to get far enough away to keep the people of the town safe from harm. Natasha seemed to know that too but it didn't stop her from moving until he pulled her to a stop. "Bruce, we need to move fast—"

"I know, but there's a faster way..." he assured her. As much as he wanted every second possible with her, the innocent people in the town were more important than what he wanted.

The surprise in her expression was immediate and he released her hand, watching her widened eyes as he simply let go and let the rage flow, the pain of skin stretching and bones growing instantaneous before all he was pushed into the back of his own mind.

* * *

 _Bahir, India._

 _12:23am, last night._

"You were right, Constantin. He's here. My men watching the house just called in. Banner arrived two hours ago."

Niko leaned back on the couch with a smirk, "And no more of your men were slaughtered in the last thirty some odd hours, General. Given that they are both in one place, I suggest you send more than a handful for this one."

He watched as Ross chuckled before the repugnant man replied, "Oh, I'll be sending much more. It's nothing to care about, those men are expendable. Besides, we only have to focus on taking Romanoff according to your sources."

"Given that the beast _and_ the man both seem to have an affinity for Natalia, it stands to reason that connection will give him some pause. Though I have to wonder if that little connection will really make the monster just stop and give up," Niko tacked on in curiosity, "but at least it shall be interesting to say the least."

Ross shrugged, "I suppose we'll find out one way or the other."

"You mean I shall find out," Niko pointed out as he spun the knife in his hand, "while you sit behind the lines with your cowardly tail tucked between your fat and girly legs."

"It's amusing that you think insulting me would change anything," Ross mentioned as he stood up with a smirk, "but fortunately I don't have some pathetic little crush on _my_ target."

"Oh, it is no crush I hold," Niko informed him with a shake of his head, "she is my job. And you need her for more than just Banner's cooperation, do not forget. You will see who pulls my strings soon enough, she is waiting for us to bring Natalia back."

"Well, whoever 'she' is; she'd better be right about this," Ross stated, "it makes all the difference in how this plays out."

"She is never wrong."

Ross snickered, "Well, you'd better hope so. Make your plan of attack, Constantin. We go in at first light when back up has arrived."

* * *

 **Huh, Niko and Ross don't seem overly fond of each other. Looks like a bit of a volatile working partnership.**


	7. Chapter 7

Keep in mind that all delays in updates are simply for me to insure I'm giving you the best possible chapters I can, that and I broke another laptop, but I prefer to go with the first explanation. Welcome back, **SweetChi**! You rock.

Fun fact for today? Don't wear something strappy and low cut in a convertible, the tan line from your seat belt will be absolutely horrendous.

 **Chapter 6** :

" _Rise up when all hope has fallen,  
Rise up and side by side we'll face this thing."_

"Boss, the satellite imaging threat system you created for SHIELD has picked up unusual activity," FRIDAY informed him.

Tony glanced up in baffled curiosity, "What sort of unusual activity?"

"This sort," FRIDAY answered as the screen appeared in front of him. The satellite images were actually quite surprisingly good quality, though he had never had use to look at them since he actually made the system for SHIELD. Then nearly dozen helicopters flying through the air certainly was 'unusual' no matter where in the world they were flying, though he knew they were flying over somewhere familiar to him, "Where is that?"

"Bahir, India."

"Shit..." he mumbled out, "FRIDAY, hack those satellites. I want images of any movement from Bruce's home there, too."

There as silence for several minutes and he knew that was simply because FRIDAY was hard at work on his request. "Sir... the satellites are unable to pick up human movement."

"I'm sensing a but."

"But they did just pick up on something else you put the system on alert for."

"And that would be?" Tony questioned.

"The Hulk, boss."

Tony frowned in an instant and he watched as the image appeared. It was still quite a distant image. "Zoom that satellite in, FRIDAY, give me a better view."

"It might be difficult boss, The Hulk is on the move."

Tony rubbed at his eyes almost immediately. "Tell me he's not about to trample that town to play a game of whack-a-mole with those choppers..."

"On the contrary, he appears to be running _away_ from the town and the helicopters."

That was unexpected. "Anything, FRIDAY, get me anyth—" and a closer image of The Hulk, though a bit blurry, appeared on the screen. He almost missed the most revealing tell for why The Big Guy was running from the fight and not toward it. The redhead that was tucked against his chest was only noticeable _because_ of that fiery mane. Seeing Natasha actually stunned him in more ways than one and the words mumbled from his lips without him actually meaning for them to, "Well...that's just about the last place I would have thought to look for her."

"That's probably why you aren't the one dating her, boss."

"Hilarious, FRIDAY. I see you've finally picked up Jarvis' witty repartee with your new vocabulary upgrade..." he grumbled with a bemused shake of his head. "Call Rogers. Tell him I'm about to make good on that kidnapping I promised him, and given the small army we just bore witness to, we may want to include the rest of his little team as added victims."

"Right away, boss."

"And don't lose sight of those choppers if they manage to actually survive this fight. Considering that Natasha can take down two choppers with a pistol, I'd hate to see what The Hulk can do."

FRIDAY didn't miss a beat, "I don't imagine it will go well for the helicopters, boss."

* * *

Natasha stared in almost a stupor. She took a step back on instinct as Bruce's skin went green and he transformed almost flawlessly into The Hulk. She knew no matter how quick and effortless it looked, it certainly had to hurt, there was no denying that. People simply weren't meant to do _that_ and before she could even comprehend that he was planning to Hulk out, the Big Guy himself was staring down at her, big brown eyes a mixture of anger and quite a few other emotions that didn't usually settle onto his features. The enlarged green index fingertip of one hand reached out and ghosted over those darkened veins where the poison had clearly made its way up and onto her cheek. She patted his large finger with her hand and gave him a pensive smile, "I missed you too, Big Guy...but I really hope this ride isn't going to be as bumpy as the last one."

He gave a grim yet somewhat amused nod at her comment before he used a single arm to lift her into an almost cradle against his chest before she could say or do anything. It wasn't exactly the ride she was expecting and he took off faster than she actually knew he could move. His grip was loose yet tight all at once as he kept her tucked against his chest almost protectively. At least this time she didn't quite want to vomit her insides to the outside and then when she glanced up at him he was looking right back down at her.

There was some irony in the fact that her two most meaningful relationships in her entire life, the first being with Clint and now the second with Bruce, was that both of them tried to kill her early on in their meetings. Neither was actually personal. Clint's attempt to murder her had just been him following orders, and The Hulk, well...he just sort of wanted to kill everybody at that time.

And both of them hadn't done it. Both of them hesitated. Clint made a different call, he saved her life instead of ending it. Bruce and his other half, well, there was no telling if that small hesitation would have led to him simply smearing her against the wall or actually walking away and letting her live. Personally, she was perfectly content not knowing the truth of how that would have turned out. This, here and now, this she wasn't okay with no matter how she tried to play it off. It seemed unfair to find something she had never known she wanted only to have death waiting for her just around the corner. The reality was that she knew it was probably just karma finally biting her in the ass for everything she had done in her past, for all the red in her ledger, and that this was her just desserts.

Happiness had never been in the cards for Natasha. Madame B had been right, she had no place in the world and trying to find a place for herself in it had only led to pain and suffering. She could care less that she had done this to herself but she had dragged more anguish into Bruce's life and he hadn't deserved that. Her torment would end soon and yet Bruce would be left with the aftermath. The man who had just declared his love for her, though she knew he hadn't meant to let the words slip out, likely out of fear of her reaction. It certainly wasn't the first time a man told her he loved her, she had spent many missions convincing men to feel that way for her, but it was the first time someone said it and she _enjoyed_ it. No matter how many times she told him this wasn't his fault, she knew that he was never going to believe it.

There wasn't time to reflect on it, not as the Hulk skidded to a stop in the dirt and she listened to the overly loud whirring of the helicopters right behind them. One circled around in front of them and she watched the significantly large machine gun strapped to the side, manned by one of the men inside. The Hulk noticed it too as it was aimed down towards them. She _knew_ it wasn't actually to kill her or him, it was to distract them, to give the other choppers time to unload. It worked because The Hulk put his other arm around her and hunched over, trapping her between him and the ground, impressively doing so without crushing her or putting any weight on her at all. She could hear the bullets hitting his back and his arms, and he was doing a stand-up job of not letting a single one through to her, something that these men had been counting on.

In her opinion, they were staking a hell of a lot on faith, faith that he would protect her, or maybe now that they had him in their sights they simply no longer needed her. None of it particularly mattered given that she would be dead soon anyways. At least if they shot her she wouldn't suffer when the toxin went to her brain, of course, Bruce would blame himself for that too. She felt eyes on her and she shifted slightly to meet those enraged and worry filled brown eyes. She reached up and placed her hand on his large and gruff face, giving him a halfhearted little smile. "Don't worry, Big Guy, I'm okay..." she assured him over all the noise, "are you?" She supposed it wasn't something that needed to be asked. He _always_ seemed to be okay and he gave a snort and a nod in response to her question. She gave a chuckle and shrugged a little in her shelter beneath him, "Right, stupid question."

The bullets stopped, leading The Hulk to slowly and cautiously stand up and turn around towards the new threat. Natasha got on her own feet but before she could move to his side, his arm reached back and he had her effectively trapped behind him in a protective gesture, one that she did somewhat appreciate but she also found equally frustrating and annoying. She also knew better than to try and get out of it because that would probably just piss him off. She did manage to barely gaze around his side and see the dozens of men in front of him and she said the only plausible thing she could, "Let's show them how unfair this fight is for them, Big Guy."

He glanced back at her with a smirk and a half nod before he ran towards the men. The smart ones dove aside, though a few idiots stood their ground as they fired their guns, and they were trounced in an instant.

Natasha didn't dwell on it as she ran forward to where the Big Guy was currently beating a few of the men with the body of another man. He glanced back at her and seemed to understand what she was about to do because he hunched over just enough to make her next move easier. She clambered up his back, onto his shoulder and launched herself over top of him. She was impressed that he not only allowed her to use him like a springboard but that he actually made the maneuver easier for her to accomplish. She got her legs around the neck of one of the men, swinging her body down and around the back of him with enough momentum to send him careening into three other men with little to no effort on her part. The Hulk looked fascinated by her attack, though she figured that was because it was the first time they were fighting together and not just participating in the same fight. She landed on her hands, pushing herself backwards as her feet planted against the chest of another man and launched him directly into the Hulk's awaiting hand. He snatched the man midair by his foot and once more used a human body as a weapon against the others men.

It was an entirely new experience to actually fight with him just a few feet away. He was taking care not to throw or knock around bodies haphazardly, at least not in her direction. It was the most care he had ever taken in the midst of a fight and she knew that was likely for her sake. She caught sight of the ridiculously large gun aiming down from one of the choppers, though it wasn't like any gun she had seen before. She realized why when it actually fired. The giant net came down at a speed she almost couldn't comprehend and it took The Hulk down, throwing spikes into the ground and locking him in place. She doubted it would keep him trapped for long but she saw no reason to let it last longer than necessary.

Natasha ran towards him, diving through the legs of one of the HYDRA men in her way as she slid right up to the net. It only took her seconds to slice clean through one of the four ropes spiked into the ground and that was enough. She rolled aside and watched him rip the other three spikes straight from the ground with ease now that the fourth was no longer there. Much to the chagrin of the men attacking them, The Big Guy had only gotten taken down by that effort for a measly thirty seconds and he was already back to decimating their forces.

She heard the gun fire again from above them but before she could even see that this time that net was instead coming down at her, she was snatched by a large green hand and tossed back a few feet. He hadn't done it too roughly and she easily landed on her hands and feet in a crouch. Less than a second later she heard the small thud of boots hitting the ground behind her. She turned in an instant and grabbed the hand of Nikolao Constantin just as he tried to jab a needle into her neck, then she planted her boot into his chest and knocked him a few steps back.

"You don't know when to give up, Natalia," Niko commented with a chuckle, "you never did."

She gave him no response as she ran forward and swung at him, though he easily caught it now that he was expecting the move and this time it was his boot in her side, the side with the stitches. The pain flared all through her body immediately and she dropped to the ground, barely able to catch her breath. That probably wasn't the best of signs, it likely meant that she was getting dangerously closer to the brink of death.

"So that is why Stark is not dead," Niko stated with a laugh, "you took the bullet for that arrogant fool." She pushed through the nausea and watched as he crouched down beside her. He pushed her head to the side, staring at the marks that the toxin marred her with. "So this is the life you chose rather than the greatness you were always meant for...kissing a monstrosity and making friends with little boys who think themselves heroes?"

He was too busy staring at her neck to pay attention to what her hands were doing and she slipped the butterfly knife from where it rested between her breasts. He shifted, but not in time to completely avoid it as she jabbed it into his waist. He ignored it rather stoically, nothing more than a grimace in reaction, as his hands wrapped around her throat and slammed the back of her head into the dirt. The only effective way to stop him was to kick her foot up right between his legs, and enhanced or not, it worked like a charm. Niko doubled over and she stood, ramming her shoulder into his hunched over form and taking him to the ground.

Natasha landed on top of him and she careened one fist into his face followed by the other. The Hulk was still plowing through men even as jeeps drove towards them with more for him to beat up and he seemed to trust her to handle herself. A few more hits and Niko seemed out cold. She was about to drive home the knife from her boot into his heart when bullets pelted the ground beside her. _Beside_ her. They were still trying to take her in alive, likely to continue to use her against Bruce, and she pulled out her own gun. Each bullet needed to count, especially when there were only seven shots total. She fired the first and it went straight through the forehead of one man. That made the other five men rush towards her rather than bother with the show of firing bullets near her position.

She took out two more with the same precision before the other three managed to reach her. She gripped the hand of her first man who swung at her and swung her body around him, bringing his arm with her until it snapped. She got her ankles around the neck of the second guy and dipped her upper body through the gap in his legs. The momentum of the move was enough to flip him over completely as he landed on the ground. The third man was on top of her in seconds and she tucked the gun under his chin and pulled the trigger, shoving his dead body to the side. The first man with the broken arm got his one good hand around her neck and she tucked the gun under his chin too, pulling the trigger just as she had before.

Two bullets left in the gun and then the last of the group of men alive, the one she had flipped over using her feet, was back up. The problem with him getting up was that Niko got up behind her as well. The toxin was definitely inching closer because her reaction was too sluggish when Niko hooked his arm around her from behind and slammed her onto the ground on her back with little to no effort. There was a moment where she couldn't quite suck in the much needed air to fill her lungs with and it was enough time that she couldn't quite make out what Niko said over the comm device, just broken up bits of a sentence, "Toxin—infected—bring it." The ringing in her ears finally faded as she managed to get some oxygen to fill her lungs again and this time she heard what he said to the HYDRA soldier, "Hold her down you imbecile."

The grumbling survivor of the group of men she had slaughtered reached down to hold her shoulders against the ground and she had to admit surprise when the body of _another_ man flew from nowhere and collided into her would-be captors. Niko and the survivor of her group both got taken out by one flying body and she glanced over and saw The Hulk staring back at her. She just gave him the barest nod of appreciation before she pushed aside the breathlessness and pain, both of which were becoming increasingly worse, and she managed to get back to her feet.

Niko was the first of the two to get back up and she took aim with the gun, firing the shot straight for his head. He had a better reaction time than the other man because he dropped back to the ground to avoid it and instead her bullet went through the head of his little helper who had been getting up behind him. She didn't hesitate to aim the gun to where Niko had dropped and she fired in an instant, but the _click_ said the gun misfired and before she knew it, she was on the defensive again. Niko bolted up and ran towards her and she dropped the gun, raising her arm to block his fist and her knee to block the kick he aimed next.

It was frustratingly annoying how for minutes they continued a battle of blocked attacks, one after another, him slowed by the knife wound in his side and her slowed from the toxin in her blood. They were evenly matched up until the mind blowing pain seared through her head, throbbing very many excruciating waves of pain throughout the rest of her body to match it. Somebody screamed and given the stunned expression on Niko's face as she dropped to the ground, Natasha supposed it must have come from her own mouth. She barely saw the blur of green that knocked Niko away from her within seconds before giant arms encased her within a firm but gentle hold. Her breath caught in her throat at every wave of piercing pain that went through her body.

Enraged certainly seemed like a word that paled in comparison to the way the Big Guy let out bellowing growls towards anyone who dared to try and come closer, swatting anyone who got within range like a fly. She barely contained the moans of agony as she writhed and she could only just make out Ross as he exited a jeep nearby with an injector in hand.

He was twirling it between his fingertips with a smirk as Niko got on unsteady feet and moved beside him. Then Ross spoke, "I can save her." And that must have been what she hadn't been able to make out when Niko spoke into his comm before. He had been alerting Ross to her condition.

It seemed to stop The Hulk's bellowing at least because he went eerily silent at the comment. She looked up at him through squinted eyes and he was, as usual, near impossible to read through the eternally angry expression on his face. Clearly though, Ross had gotten his attention with those four simple words, and Natasha wasn't thrilled by it.

"This here," Ross told them, holding the injector out, "will stall the toxin, and I have the anti-toxin at my facility. The question here though, is can the beast stop fighting and surrender simply to save _one_ woman?"

Natasha frowned and saw the Big Guy glance down at her and she shook her head agonizingly slow. "He's lying, Big Guy...don't..." she mumbled out. Unfortunately she couldn't contain the next groan that left her lips when the pain rippled through her again. Thirty-one years. Never once had she felt anything this insufferable. She could see that the Big Guy had already seemed to make up his mind when she continued writhing in his arms.

"I'm taking that as a yes," Ross commented with a chuckle, "in which case I'll be needing Banner and not his beast."

The Hulk snarled at the man, clearly unhappy with the not just being told to transform back into his human counterpart, but likely that it had come from one person that _both_ he and Bruce despised. The more impressive thing was that he sat down on the ground, still cradling her with the greatest of care, and then suddenly she could _feel_ him changing. It wasn't the painful and unwelcomed return to Bruce that usually came accompanied with him holding his head and falling to the ground. Instead the arms around her got smaller without managing to increase her pain by squeezing her, the body she was held against to shrunk in much the same way, and green skin slowly became Bruce's normal pallor. It was his first seamless transformation, perhaps because both halves of him were in tune for the first time.

"Natasha..." it was Bruce's voice that made her meet his eyes. Worried, pained, terrified were all mixed into the deep brown that looked down at her.

She shook her head slightly, trying to ignore the way to pain was only increasing. "Don't, Bruce..." she tried again, raising her hand slowly as she placed it on the side of his face. She knew it wasn't going to work. If she couldn't convince his angrier other half not to surrender to save her then she had a fat chance in hell at convincing Bruce himself to do the same thing.

"Banner, I suppose I'll need to rehash this—" Ross began.

"Don't bother," Bruce answered without letting the General finish, "I remember your offer to the Other Guy...it's fairly obvious we accept."

"Bruce..." she mumbled out again, "do _not_ give him what he wants...I'm not worth this..."

The pain in her head became even more excruciating and it felt like every muscle was contracting, every bone in her body felt like they were on the verge of snapping. She must have made a face even if she managed to contain any possible noises because as her hand slid from his face, Bruce's knuckles came to rest on her cheekbone before he spoke softly, "You're worth it all..." She couldn't find it in her to feel like she deserved to have someone think that much of her or feel that much for her. She certainly didn't deserve to have someone give up everything for her that way Bruce was doing here and now. "What are you waiting for?" he questioned to Ross, "I already agreed. She's in pain, _save_ her!"

She really wanted to speak up against the idea once again but her voice failed her as pain continually wracked her body.

"Hideous little toxin, isn't it?" Ross questioned. She saw him walking towards them and she clenched her fingers around Bruce's wrist before Ross was speaking again, "I'm impressed she's still alive. That toxin is meant to kill within twenty-four hours. I suppose being genetically superior to the rest of the human race did her _and_ me a few favors here." She knew he meant that he was lucky she had lived long enough to even still be a viable tool of leverage against Bruce. If her hands were cooperating then she would have put a knife right through his smarmy face. Now Niko was stepping up to them too and Ross finally spoke one more time, "Hand her to Constantin. I don't want any funny business when I give this to her."

 _That_ got her moving. She held tighter onto Bruce when Niko reached to take her, grimacing and groaning all the while.

"Natasha, just let them save you. I can't lose you..."

"Adorable," Niko commented with a roll of his eyes. Before she had time to think about it, her male Russian counterpart snatched the injector from Ross and then jabbed it into her neck before anyone could react. For a few seconds she could hardly breathe. Everything inside her felt like it was on fire. "Like he said, this just stalls the symptoms, so hand her over or take her on the jeep yourself. Either way, the only way you save Natalia completely is to cooperate."

"Fine..." that was Bruce, it definitely sounded like Bruce, but her vision blurred and blackened while the pain slowly abated and she then she couldn't make heads or tales of anything further that was said. It was the last thing she remembered before everything faded completely.

* * *

Between getting on a jeep and then onto a helicopter, Bruce never once released Natasha from his grasp. They had admitted that the anti-toxin was back wherever they would be going and that meant he wasn't giving her up until then. Ross was seated across from him looking smug in the most annoying and frustrating of ways while Natasha's nemesis, Nikolao Constantin, sat next to him wearing a rather Natasha-esque expression of neutrality. He supposed both of them learned it from the same place. Still, it was hard to figure out just what stake the Russian held in all of this.

He didn't know a whole lot about him, just that he was the one to have pulled a rather brainwashed 'Natalia Romanova' from Red Room, where Clint came across the rattled and drugged young woman just over a week later. The man had thought he was 'saving' her, so what was he trying to accomplish now?

"She is a hard woman to resist, is she not, Doctor Banner?" The words came from the man he had just been trying to determine the motives of and Bruce ignored his comment, acknowledging them for the taunt he knew they would turn into. That didn't exactly stop Niko from continuing, "I am impressed, however. You have clearly tickled her fancy."

Bruce ignored that, too.

"Shut up, Constantin."

That would probably be the only time Bruce would ever be grateful to Ross and that certainly didn't last long when the unbearably uncomfortable trip came to an end. He watched as Niko yanked the door open and a woman stood there. She was older than himself, blonde hair with wisps of gray, and the coldest looking of blue eyes that he had ever seen. Those eyes, wrinkles formed at their sides, shifted without emotion towards Natasha's face and only remained there for a moment before they drifted to his own face with much the same non-expression.

"Meet Stasia Balshovich," Ross introduced as he stepped off the helicopter and waved someone else over.

A man with a gurney wheeled it over and Bruce eyed it with disdain, still uncertain about releasing Natasha given that there was no guarantee they would save her. Even more worrisome, there was no guarantee that saving her wouldn't lead to a worse situation.

"Give her to us," Stasia ordered. He recognized the accent as Russian and that perturbed him further. "Give her to us or she dies," she stated next. Unsteady and warm puffs of air hit his neck from Natasha's lips and he did as she said, laying Natasha down on the gurney and already hating the fact that he did it. Everything about the way no emotion came from Stasia's voice and the veil of neutrality that enveloped her face was just like—like Natasha. The realization hit him a moment too late and the man with the gurney was _gone_ before he could take the decision back. He looked from Ross to Stasia and the horror hit him in seconds as two words left his lips, "Red Room..."

"He _is_ smart," Stasia commented with a chuckle. "I would suggest keeping your temper in check, Doctor. _Natasha_ is still dying for the moment," she reminded him, "and you can relax. My plan doesn't include erasing her memories."

That _did_ help him relax at least a little bit. "Why _do_ you want her then?" he dared to ask, "it can't just be because of me."

"You are a main factor," she answered with a nonchalant shrug before she turned on her heel and left them.

It seemed that was all he would get. But being a 'main factor' certainly didn't mean he was the 'only' factor. All of them wanted Natasha for reasons other than leverage against him and that worried him more than anything. He had unwittingly handed her over to the very people who had turned her into a human weapon for nearly two-third's of her life. She thought she wasn't worth saving but he disagreed. Now he had a feeling that saving her might just lead to her hating him. He glanced over when Ross motioned for him to move and he followed after him with Niko behind him. "What exactly do you want, Ross?" he finally dared to ask.

"You'll see soon enough," Ross informed him, "cooperation is key, Banner. You'll wish you didn't agree to have us save her life if you decide to go back on that agreement."

"I'm not going to do that..." Bruce assured him with disdain.

Ross snickered, "Here's your room."

Bruce watched as glass, likely nearly the same that encased his own Hulk tank in the tower, slid open. The entire room was encased in it and he sighed, running his fingers through his hair before stepping inside and not bothering to turn around as the glass slid to a close behind him. Lights came from the glass wall to his right and he turned to look. There was no one there, but it was another room. All it contained was a bed and a door that was left open, leading into the world's smallest bathroom. He glanced around and determined that his own abode held much the same in the way of little to no accommodations.

When he looked back to where he entered, Ross and Niko were already gone and he frowned. He had imagined to get more than 'you'll see soon enough' from the man and that left him with a nervous feeling. If Ross wasn't starting whatever he had planned right off the bat than Bruce could only assume that meant that whatever he had planned also involved Natasha.

Minutes ticked by into an hour before more lights came on in the room next to his own. He turned his head to look from where he was sitting on the floor and then he was on his feet. Niko walked in with Natasha hanging over his shoulder. He dropped her onto the bed even as the blonde woman, Stasia, stepped in as well. Bruce frowned when she attached a set of handcuffs to each of Natasha's wrists and then attached the other sides to the bedposts. Both Niko and Stasia were speaking Russian, not a lick of it being anything that he understood, then they walked out and shut Natasha in without ever looking towards him.

"Natasha!" he called out, banging on the glass. She never moved a muscle. The only indicator that she was even still breathing was the rise and fall of her chest, a chest that was now in a tank top rather than his purple shirt. She was also finally out of her tattered jeans, donning a pair of black sweatpants. They were at least true to their word though because those blackish-gray veins were gone and her normal pallor had returned, though she had several mottled bruises marring her arms. The relief was only minor given what he knew now; that he had put Natasha back into the hands of people who could erase everything that she had become, though Stasia had insisted that wasn't going to happen. Still, the handcuffs didn't make a lot of sense to him. He couldn't imagine that after all of her training that handcuffs would keep Natasha Romanoff trapped on a bed even if he wasn't sure _how_ she might actually accomplish it.

Bruce just needed her to wake up, to see that she really was alright, so he sat down and leaned against the glass to keep a close eye on her. Banging on the glass was as ineffective as calling her name. Natasha was about as far into unconsciousness as it got it would seem and he supposed he was just left to wait it out.

Each steady rise and fall of her chest was like a balm for him and he kept his focus on that.

Just like when he had sat in the room waiting before, minutes flew by, turning into nearly two hours before the redhead moved. But Natasha didn't just merely move, she jerked upward, her hands clanging the cuffs against the metal bedposts roughly. That only seemed to make it worse as she angled sideways and pulled harder, her eyes still closed as her mind plagued her and the handcuffs only worsened the situation.

"Natasha! Natasha, _wake up_!" he called out, getting back onto his feet and banging on the glass. Nothing. She didn't wake, she only pulled her hands harder as her body jerked and he could see her eyes rapidly moving behind her eyelids. The latest yank was hard enough that he saw them cut into skin and he banged on the glass harder, hard enough it seemed because Natasha's eyes shot open at once. She didn't move for two minutes, didn't blink once and hell, she didn't even pull at her hands. "Natasha...?" he questioned with worry.

* * *

The incessant banging woke her and she stayed her body even as her eyes opened in an instant. The metal around her wrists, her hands pulled back and hanging above her head...both were far too familiar and left her mind back in a place it hadn't been in for well over a decade. It took what felt like ages before the fog in her mind began to clear and then she heard the voice to go along with the noise.

"Natasha...?"

The familiarity of his voice seeped in and brought with it an unexpected calmness. She blinked several times before she turned her head and met Bruce's deeply concerned brown ones. His hands were pressed against the glass that separated them and after that she let her eyes shift around the tiny room she was in, then to the handcuffs trapping her to the bedposts. The first coherent thing she could truly think was that she was _alive_. It was the first time since that day Clint found her that she accepted that she was about to die. At least this time her death would have meant something. It would have _been_ for something. Yet here she was, still alive once again, and for no other reason except that someone once more thought she was someone worth saving.

She could only assume that Niko was clearly attempting to disorient her by torturing her mind with the past. It had been effective for a few minutes at least before she wriggled her wrists to begin to try and slip the cuffs. She barely grimaced as the metal dug a little further into the skin of her wrists and then she realized they were far too tight to do it the simple or easy way. Getting out would require the painful breaking of fingers, not that she hadn't ever had to do the same before, but even that might not completely be enough to get out of them.

The door to her room swung open before she could make a decision and who entered ruined her false mask of indifference. For several moments she forgot to breathe as icy eyes stared back at her. It was practically never ending as green eyes stared into blue, neither of them faltering by blinking. Finally the blonde woman in the door way let one corner of her lips quirk upward just slightly in what Natasha remembered as a way she showed pride.

"Hello, Natasha."

She was surprised that the woman used the name she went by now and not her given one, but she supposed it was just to remind both of them that she was no longer _that_ person, especially given the last year. From the corner of her eye she could see the look of guilt on Bruce's face and Natasha could only assume that he had some idea of who this woman was, though she doubted he understood exactly who she was.

"I tried to tell you there would never be a place for you in the world," she continued, "yet you tried to find one for yourself."

The words were ones she was told and had repeated many times, words she had said to Bruce in Bahir when Ross' men had found them, and she could see the recognition dawn in his eyes as he heard them again.

Natasha wondered if her lack of a verbal response would ruffle the woman's feathers for the first time since she had known her, though she sincerely doubted it, it was worth a shot. She was right to the effect that it didn't bother her in the least, instead she merely got chastised, much like one would do to a child acting petulant, "That's no way to treat someone who took care of you."

Perhaps it was being around Tony Stark far too often that the sarcastic retort left her lips, or perhaps she had always wanted to actually say something along the lines, but she shrugged as nonchalantly as one could while handcuffed to bedposts while the words escaped no matter what the reason was, "Most people would have called that child abuse but if that's the way you'd like to word it then by all means, call it whatever you want, Madame."

Madame B was someone she hardly ever talked about, not even to Clint, though she had mentioned her once or twice to Bruce without any real detail. Natasha didn't react when the woman placed her hand on her cheek in an almost endearing manner, something she had never done before. "What did you think you would find when you rejoined the world?" she questioned, "what did you hope to accomplish?"

Natasha gave the obvious answer, "I wasn't the one who escaped."

"No, that was Nikolao, but he did that under orders," came the answer, "it was a test for _you_. A SHIELD assassin wasn't entirely unexpected, but one that would show mercy and then actually recruit you? That was never something anyone could have seen coming."

"Guess you should have made a better contingency plan."

"Perhaps you're right," she agreed, "but it's of little to no consequence. You still did precisely what you were made for."

Natasha actually narrowed her eyes slightly at that.

"You tamed the beast," she emphasized.

"I suppose you somehow want to take credit for the fact that I trust him and he trusts me," Natasha stated with an exaggerated eye roll. She could see Bruce through the glass as he quirked an eyebrow up at her comment.

Madame B chuckled before Natasha watched her remove her hand from her face, then she smiled again. "You have no idea, do you?" and then she glanced at the glass, over at Bruce, "neither of you do."

"About what?" Bruce was the one to ask though it had been on the tip of her tongue.

"Gamma radiation wasn't the one and only factor for The Hulk being created, Doctor Banner," she informed him, "in fact, your initial thought that so much radiation should have killed you was correct. The reason it didn't is because there was a sample of our Super Soldier serum in the lab. The same serum the courses through Natasha's body. This 'connection' isn't based off of trust between her and your beast, it's based off the fact that he _knows_ you two share that commonality."

Bruce was silent at the answer and even Natasha was unsure what to say in response. It seemed that neither of them had known that small fact.

"The two of you were created for each other," Madame B informed them and Natasha frowned at the comment as the older woman twirled her red strands of hair around her index finger. "I'll let the two of you think about that for a while," she tacked on before she left.

Natasha stayed silent, not meeting Bruce's eyes. She had told him that though she didn't believe in 'love' she did believe that he was the 'one person' who made her feel almost whole again. Was that because they had literally and scientifically been 'made for each other'? If that was true then did Bruce even believe her own feelings for him or would he now think she was part of some long-term ploy to gain his trust, or as he had more recently affirmed, his love?

"Natasha..." Bruce's voice broke her thoughts and she finally looked over at him, "maybe she's right, even if it's about the Other Guy...but that serum didn't make our feelings."

She gave him the smallest of smiles. At least that eased her initial thoughts. "I suppose it didn't," she agreed.

"Are you alright?"

Natasha nodded at that, "I'm okay, Bruce. Are you?"

"Well, you're alive, so yes."

And it was just so _Bruce_ to say that being trapped in a cage was 'okay' simply because she had lived. She shifted her eyes back to her cuffed wrists, taking a better look. Even broken fingers weren't going to get her out of these. Enough leverage and a good angle and she could probably break the chain link, though that wasn't going to be a fun feat it certainly didn't stop her, just like it never stopped her before. She angled to the side, braced herself, then pulled her own shoulder out of the socket when she turned back roughly.

"Shit! Natasha, what the hell?!"

She groaned at the never ending jabbing pain that coursed through her shoulder but now she could get the angle she needed. She swung her feet above her head and onto the metal rimmed posts. She was seriously testing the limits of her flexibility with this. With one shoulder out of its socket she could maneuver further to the other side and it was enough to twist the chain the way that she needed to, getting it twisted once around the metal post. She dug her foot into it but that wasn't quite enough and instead she pulled her foot back and slammed it into the chain and the post. It was hard enough it would seem because the links snapped. That was one hand down and she lowered her legs back onto the bed before she sat up and reached to her injured arm. It was much more simple to get the chain around the bed post now and maneuver to find the weak spot to break it without _two_ cuffed wrists. The entire ordeal took about five minutes, but she was free and she didn't have to break a finger, so she supposed she could be grateful for small favors.

She was rubbing at her torn wrists, metal bracelets from the cuffs still attached, and debating the best way to put her shoulder back in place when Bruce's voice interrupted her thoughts, "You're clinically insane, you know that don't you?"

Natasha actually chuckled at the comment despite the circumstances, "You aren't the first person to tell me that."

"I doubt I'll be the last, either. Are you—" and she assumed he was about to say 'alright' again, but before he could she leaned over and rammed her shoulder into the bed post. It was effective enough because her shoulder popped back into place and she grimaced slightly until his words once again amused her, "You know...that was extremely impressive in a self-destructive sort of way..."

"One of my master skills," Natasha informed him with a wry smile before she got off the bed and moved towards the glass.

"Self-destructive impressionism, I always thought that was my thing," he retorted with a shake of his head.

It wasn't as though there was a reason to hide her affection for Bruce. _Everyone_ and their mother seemed to know. She pressed her hand, still with it's new metal bracelet attached from her broken cuffs, against his on the glass. "You shouldn't have done this, not for me, not for anybody," she told him quietly, "but thank you..."

"You're worth it," and Bruce really seemed to believe that was true. "I didn't know it was Red Room until it was too late though, I swear..." he added on.

She gave a nod to that, "I know."

"I wouldn't have—"

"Bruce, it's okay. None of this was your fault, I meant that before and I still mean it," she insisted.

"So...she was Madame B?" he questioned, "Ross introduced her as Stasia Balshovich." Natasha blinked several times, the reality being that it was the only response she could think to give. She had never actually known Madame B's real name, at least she didn't think she did. Bruce seemed to notice because he didn't hesitate to ask, "What's wrong?"

She shook her head a little with a frown, "That name just sounds familiar."

Bruce looked more than a little confused and just slightly unsettled by her response. "Can't remember?"

Again she shook her head before giving a verbal response, "No. I mean it's there...somewhere, I just can't pick out how I know the name."

"From Red Room?" and she knew he was just trying to be helpful, but she must have made a face because he looked apologetic, "but I'm sure that was your first thought and you've already disputed it in your head."

It was accurate enough but she didn't get a chance to answer when the glass between them when dark. Suddenly Bruce was gone from her sight and she assumed she was gone from his. "Bruce?" she questioned.

Nothing.

Apparently their voices no longer carried through to each other either. There had to be a reason for it and she removed her hand from the glass and instead watched the door. She wasn't left waiting for long because a woman with brown hair walked into the room wearing a white lab coat. First instinct had Natasha in a defensive stance, about to shift into offense when she realized _why_ they would allow a scientist of all people to enter her room alone. She recognized the woman even if it was only from pictures and SHIELD files.

Natasha lowered her hands back to her side, watching as the warm blue eyes of the other woman shifted from her hands to her face. Her voice was just as warm as her eyes, and though the brunette might be working in a lab here, Natasha didn't think she had known about any of this before she was thrust into it, "I thought you looked familiar when those men brought you into the lab earlier...but I couldn't get a good look at you. You're Natasha Romanoff, aren't you? The Avenger?"

'Natasha Romanoff the Avenger'. That wasn't the way people typically worded that, not using her first name anyways, but she nodded to the brunette nonetheless.

"I'm—"

"I know who you are," Natasha assured her, "Elizabeth Ross."

She received a timid little smile from the woman. "Betty," came her insistent reply. "May I?" the woman questioned, motioning towards Natasha's wrists. She supposed there was no reason not to so she held her hands out to her, watching as Betty stepped into her personal space before she carefully and gently took them into her own soft hands. She was studying the cuts caused from the handcuffs before she spoke, "I'll get something to get those off and clean these next time." Still, Natasha didn't say a word as she studied Betty's face. She wasn't one to typically compare herself to another woman, or to feel jealousy, but she could understand why Bruce had loved Betty Ross. Just on appearance alone she wasn't just beautiful, she gave off a 'homely' vibe, one that said 'wife' or 'mother' material. Those were things that Natasha could _never_ be. Betty's next words were spoken more quietly and given their substance, she understood it was so that she couldn't be overheard by whoever might be listening, "My father has Bruce too, doesn't he?"

Lying didn't seem fair. She didn't get that feeling that Betty had wanted anything to do with this, which meant they might just have an ally in all of this. "Yes," she finally answered.

"He used you to get him." That wasn't a question but Natasha still hesitated with a response nonetheless. "It's alright," Betty insisted, "I mean...I've seen the videos of you and The Hulk. Not a lot of people would show him that level of trust, most won't even show it to Bruce once they know who he is."

"He's never given me a reason not to," Natasha answered with a shrug.

Betty still had her hands in her own, still scrutinizing the cuts, and she imagined that was for the sake of the cameras. "Still...he needed people to believe in him, and he found that with The Avengers. With _you_ ," she emphasized. It left Natasha a bit at a loss for words. All she could think to do was stare blankly at her before Betty spoke again, "I'll come back, but I'm supposed to take a blood sample."

Well, that at least made a bit more sense for why she was in Natasha's room and why nobody was stopping her. She wondered if the blacked out wall was to hide Bruce from Betty or Betty from Bruce. Natasha was willing to bet it was both. It didn't matter, she held her arm out and let the brunette take the blood sample.

"People said you have a version of the Super Soldier serum in you...is that what my father is after?" Betty questioned as she filled the vial.

"I honestly don't know," Natasha answered, "but I doubt that's all it is. He didn't need Bruce for that, just me."

Betty nodded a little at the answer and she didn't look at all relieved. "I'll see what I can find out for you..."

Natasha watched her go but she didn't say anything further to Betty. It was honestly one of the strangest circumstances she had ever found herself in. Locked in a room, surrounded by HYDRA, Red Room, and General Ross...and then needing to converse with Bruce's ex. Physical torture would have been more comfortable than that.

* * *

 **Apologies to my very persistent guest reviewer, sorry for any heart palpitations I've caused with the delay. Also, sorry for any errors that were missed. With a broken labtop, I'm writing this on a tablet. Writing this much on a touch screen? Not the easiest feat.**


	8. Chapter 8

Glad to see yet another familiar face! Big thanks to **Adsdragonlover** for the kind words!

 **Chapter 7** :

" _I was raised in a deep dark hole,  
A prisoner with no parole.  
They locked me up and took my soul,  
It's a shame though what they made me."_

An hour went by and it seemed Natasha still couldn't see or hear Bruce. He imagined that they did it purposely, taking away their ability to communicate. But why let him see and hear into her room when she clearly couldn't with his? To drive him crazy?

He definitely hadn't expected Betty's appearance. He hadn't seen her in years, hadn't even had the gall to see what she had done with her life since he left. While Natasha had at least looked mildly surprised to see his ex, she had instantly stood down, deciding to give Betty the benefit of the doubt within seconds of laying eyes on her. While Natasha might be giving Betty credit merely for his benefit, Bruce couldn't deny that something just didn't seem right. Ross always wanted his daughter away from him and away from all of this, so why would he bring her into this now?

It was hard to decide which of them might have been more uncomfortable; Natasha, Betty or even himself. He could see it in Natasha's eyes even if it was imperceptible to most people, she hadn't been at all comfortable with the situation even if she had been perfectly polite. Still, Betty had been acting much the same way, uncomfortable but nice, the same way he had always known her to be. And Bruce? He was just downright uncomfortable and there was no hiding it, though it didn't matter much since neither of them had been able to see him. His ex and—well, whatever he and Natasha might actually be, if they were still anything. It wasn't as though they'd had time to discuss that. He certainly never imagined himself in such a strange predicament, though that was because he wasn't exactly a social butterfly. Leave it to him to date only two people and get seriously involved and yet somehow both of them wind up in the same room.

Now he watched as Natasha leaned against the wall between them on her uninjured shoulder, her face its a mask of indifference that he remembered, though he knew a million and one thoughts were running through her mind at a mile a minute. She was someone who was always thinking, always plotting, always debating different ways out of situations that she was caught in. He had seen how uncertain she had become when Stasia, or Madame B, had informed them that they had scientifically been crafted for one another. If that was true then who had even put that serum in his lab in the first place? The only person who had that direct of access to his work had been—

Betty...

But she wouldn't have...would she?

Emotional face of steel or not, the redhead right on the other side of the wall was troubled and there wasn't a damn thing Bruce could do about it. She couldn't see him and she couldn't hear him. That hour was painfully frustrating as thought after thought raced through his head about everything that had gone on in the last several days since his return to civilization. Once again he was left in solitude as Natasha's door opened. Her eyes shifted to the door but she didn't budge from her position or give any indication that she cared even the slightest bit as Ross stepped in with two guards. If all of this had been to get Bruce himself then why did they seem so focused on Natasha?

Something more was going on. He knew it likely to do with what Madame B had inferred about earlier, that they both had the same serum within them. Even so, Ross didn't seem perturbed by Natasha's disinterest in his appearance, though Bruce was surprised that she didn't take on either an offensive or a defensive stance.

"You know, Miss Romanoff, I don't want to have to kill you," Ross stated without wasting a second. "Cooperation will go a long way. I want us to be friends, allies even. We can help each other out," he offered.

He watched as Natasha stared at the General, then she chuckled before she gave him a response, "What you mean is that you can't kill me, otherwise you'll lose your leverage to keep Bruce contained. You want me to make things easy for you? That's not going to happen, so you can shove your 'alliance' up your ass."

Ross didn't react badly, instead he snickered as he moved closer, stepping right into Natasha's face. Bruce seemed like the only uncomfortable one out of the three of them and they couldn't even see him to know it.

The General reached up, grasping a few strands of red hair and twisting them around his finger before he spoke again, "What, no offer to seduce me to buy yours and Banner's freedom? I hear that's your thing."

Bruce could almost feel the rage building at the comment, and the way he was so close to her certainly didn't help matters any, but Natasha just quirked an eyebrow up at Ross and smirked as she gave him a retort, "Not even if I thought it would work. I have standards."

That comment was one right out of the 'Stark's witty insults book' if he'd ever heard one and was as ill-received as Bruce imagined it would be. The resounding noise from where Ross' open palm met Natasha's cheek caused her face to shift in Bruce's direction on impact and _that_ had his blood flowing even further. He was honestly surprised he hadn't turned green already.

"Standards?" Ross huffed out in a half-laugh and half-exasperation, "you don't have standards, Miss Romanoff. You don't have moral lines that you won't cross and you certainly don't have a code. It doesn't matter what you tell yourself, you're a murderer, an empty shell masquerading around as a person because your puppet strings were too loose, sort of like you."

Natasha gave no facial expression in response to the slap or Ross' insults and instead she turned her face back to the General and smiled in a rather unsettling manner. "There's going to come a point where you're all alone, where there's no guards, and just so you know...when that time comes I _will_ kill you," she warned him with an essence of nonchalance that was more than a tad bit eerie, "I might be nothing more than an empty shell, I might not even really be human anymore, but I do keep promises and that _is_ a promise, even if it's the last thing I do."

Ross huffed out a chuckle in response but Bruce could actually hear the uneasiness in that semi-laugh. At least that made Bruce feel just a little better because not too many people had the ability to bother Ross on that level. Clearly her indifference and that killer smile annoyed Ross and didn't just unhinge him because he grasped her throat and slammed her against the safety glass wall between the two of them and Bruce. Natasha never made a noise, never made a comment, but she did jab her fist right into Ross' throat. Bruce didn't know if it was something she did because she wanted to, if it was an instinctual reaction, or perhaps it was even a combination of both. Either way it knocked the General on his rear end and Natasha quickly had both guards on her, one of their hands on each of her shoulders and both of their pistols aimed at her head. Bruce just felt useless on the other side of the glass, though he imagined Natasha could have handled both of them too if she had wanted to, she seemed to decide to do nothing about them. There was nothing he could do as Ross got back on his feet and reeled his fist back.

"Oh my God...what are you doing?!"

Bruce stared, equally as stunned as Ross appeared to be when Betty's voice carried into the room. He and Ross both looked to the doorway at the same time and stared at Betty's disbelieving face as she saw her father with his fist raised and about to hit Natasha, whose face already bore a rather nasty red mark from the initial slap she had received. The brunette was carrying a handcuff key, a little bottle of disinfectant and some bandages. Apparently she had come back to be true to her word, to get the handcuff bracelets off and clean up Natasha's wrists.

"They sent you in here before without telling me because they knew I wouldn't allow it. You don't come into this room, Betty," Ross ordered his daughter, "she's a killer, she's dangerous."

Natasha chuckled a little at his comment before she interrupted their chat, "You call me the dangerous one, but given the circumstances who's really the monster here, General?"

"She is _not_ dangerous," Betty insisted, stepping forward and grasping her father's wrist, lowering it back to his side, "when I was in here she never once gave any indication that she would hurt me."

"That's what makes her dangerous, Betty," Ross informed his daughter with disdain clear in his tone, "you never really know what she's thinking or what she might do. She's a murderer, an assassin, and you can't trust her with even a second of your life."

Bruce frowned at the comment but it seemed Betty had no interest in listening as she spoke again, "You're supposed to be one of the good guys. You're supposed to do the _right_ thing. How is this right? She can't even defend herself!"

And if Betty even knew half of what Natasha was capable of then she would have never said that last part. She clearly hadn't seen Natasha jab her father in the throat when he grabbed her and she certainly hadn't heard the redhead's threat to kill him. Still, Bruce couldn't decipher Betty's motives. If she thought her father was in the wrong then why would she have helped him at all? He supposed scientific curiosity might just be a possibility. There was a time, and occasionally there still were times, when his own moral compass got swayed by science. Ultron had been one of those more recent times.

"There won't be any problems as long as she cooperates," Ross assured his daughter.

"I'm not doing anything for you," Natasha informed him in a rather polite tone that seemed to annoy the General. "Everything you could think to do to me has already been done, most of it by the very people you've aligned yourself with now. There's nothing you can do to _persuade_ me to do what you want _._ You want to call me a killer? Maybe you should think about who you're working with. You're well aware that they're the ones who made me who I am so if you're working with them, with liars and killers who put twenty-eight little girls in a room and warped their minds, forced them to either kill each other or die—then what kind of person does that make you, General?"

Betty's expression donned a look of absolute horror and her voice didn't prove her face wrong, "Is—is that true?"

Natasha interrupted whatever Ross might have answered his daughter with. "Daddy's got some nasty secrets, Betty. That woman, _Stasia..._ " and Bruce knew it was the first time Natasha was saying that name herself, "she told us that my super soldier serum was in Bruce's lab. That combined with the gamma radiation made him The Hulk. If that's true, how do you think that serum got into a secure facility and an even more secure lab?"

Bruce let his eyes shift from Natasha to Betty, seeing the uncertainty in those blue eyes as she stared at her father. Natasha was sowing seeds of doubt, being ever the spy even when she was the one who was supposed to be on the wrong end of things. It was miraculously impressive how easily she could turn the tides when she wanted to.

"You—you didn't..." Betty mumbled as she stared at her father, uncertainty morphing to clear belief in Natasha's claims, "tell me you didn't..."

"He probably used you to get it in there without you ever knowing," Natasha offered up next.

"Shut up," Ross growled out.

"Dad—"

Natasha chuckled, "What did you do? Put it in her bag before she went in? Slip it into her lab coat? Pack it in her lunch while pretending to be a decent father? No matter how it got in, you were involved and that much is obvious," she accused.

"Is she telling the truth?" Betty questioned quickly.

Natasha didn't give Ross a chance to deny it, or Betty a chance to ask anything else. "It takes balls to set that up when your own daughter works in the lab, but I suppose you took care to make sure she wasn't there when it happened, just like a good little father, am I right?" and Betty was looking between them, clearly unsure what to make of the accusations against her father, accusations that she obviously had begun to believe on some level.

Apparently it was enough to set the man off though because Ross raised his hand again and smacked the mouthy redhead across the face for a second time. Bruce could feel his heart racing rapidly. Betty's gasp was enough to show the brunette's horror and Natasha barely batted an eye as she stared Ross dead in the eye before her voice came out in an amused tone, "Well, color me impressed. I wasn't sure that you would actually do that in front of your daughter."

The silence in the room was almost deafening as Ross stared at Natasha with seering rage, as Natasha stared right back without a care, and Betty just looked like she had entered a nightmare. Niko entered the room in that moment, pushing in what looked like a trough with water sloshing inside of it while another man carried in a metal chair. Niko was snickering as he spoke, "Has Natalia gotten your rather large panties in a bunch? How easily she gets on ones nerves and gets one to do what she wants has always been an impressive thing. It makes you wonder who is the spider and who is the fly in this little battle, eh, General?"

Bruce actually watched the corner of Natasha's lips curl into a smirk at Niko's comment when Ross looked at the Russian man with an expression akin to annoyance.

"Constantin, kindly return my daughter back to her lab once you've set up," Ross ordered, "but you do anything more than that and I'll make sure it's the last thing you do."

"I would love to see you make good on that," Niko commented with a snicker.

"So would I," Natasha quipped, which of course earned her another open palm to the face, and only made her snicker again.

Bruce didn't need to question what the trough of water was for as the two men holding Natasha pulled her towards the chair and trough. She didn't even struggle, in fact, she didn't look bothered by what was about to happen in the very least. It said something when someone knew they were about to be tortured and they weren't affected by it. He knew without a doubt and so did the Other Guy that nothing good would happen next. Each man had one of her arms grasped in theirs and Ross stood directly behind her. Knowing what was about to happen in the next few seconds was all it took to completely lose himself to the anger.

* * *

"So we lost them?"

Tony glanced over at Steve, released a heavy sigh, then rubbed his hands over his eyes. "Yeah...FRIDAY tracked them from India to Sri Lanka but the satellites lost them. Chances are pretty damn good that they're there somewhere, it's the only way they'd have disappeared, but those rainforests are dense and if they've got a base set up there then it's not going to be easy to find. We could search for days and never find a thing..."

"Then how do we find them?" Wanda questioned without hesitation.

"Even if we use the satellites to check heat signatures, it'll only be effective _if_ they're in the rainforest," Tony informed her, "heat signatures in a town or city aren't going to be useful at all."

"So you just want to give up?" she asked next with a clear hint of displeasure to her accented voice.

Tony knew Wanda wasn't his biggest fan, though she knew now that it wasn't actually him that sold the weapons that killed her family, they _were_ still his weapons and he could understand her hesitation to be anything more than just polite for the sake of the team. That was a trait Tony imagined she picked up from being around Natasha. He supposed Wanda figured that if the redhead could forgive and forget what occurred in Johannesburg, something which had torn apart not just her sanity temporarily, but in the end her relationship as well...then it seemed Wanda decided she could at least _pretend_ to not want to kill Tony himself. It also left Tony wondering just how Bruce might handle the Avenger's resident little witch. He had never gotten the chance to tell him about Wanda given the Houdini act his best friend had pulled. Tony didn't imagine Bruce would react particularly well though, given all that had happened and the scientist's threat once during the Ultron debacle that he could choke the life out of her and not change a shade.

"I'm not saying we don't search...obviously we're not going to just turn around and give up," Tony assured her.

"How sure are we that Ross actually brought them to Sri Lanka?" Steve questioned.

"There is an eighty-eight percent certainty that they are in Sri Lanka," Vision answered, "given the direction the helicopters were flying and likely fuel capacity...there aren't very many other options. Also, it's more than likely that if the helicopters had continued flying over and passed Sri Lanka that the satellites would have picked them back up."

"Well, I suppose one place to search is better than the entire planet..." Steve said with a sigh.

Sam was the next one to speak up, "One place, maybe, but even though most of us can fly around without a jet doesn't exactly change the fact that we don't even have a general search area. We need something more to go on than a blind search."

Rhodey could only shake his hand as he commented, "We gotta work with what we've got."

"What we've _got_ is nothing," Wanda reminded them both, "what about SHIELD? Could they not help?"

Steve could only shake his head, "If SHIELD steps in they'll have to stop hiding what's been going on, something they've been doing to protect Natasha."

Wanda looked more than outraged as she responded to that answer, " _Protect_ her? She was the one being attacked! Natasha protected _herself_!"

"Wanda..." Steve murmured, "what she did wasn't self-defense—"

"No...this isn't right," Wanda told them all. "For six months she stood on two feet, held her head up, and we let her act like she was fine," she reminded them, "but none of you had to feel what she felt." Wanda pointed to her chest as she spoke again, " _I_ could feel what she felt when she could no longer push it all the way into the back of her head." Tony felt his gut twist a little at that. "Natasha was in pain. She was _always_ in pain...I could feel it at the boatyard with Ultron, and Doctor Banner was always the same when I was around him, always in pain. It was—it was...intense..." It was something he knew to be true. Bruce and Natasha both hid a life time of pain inside of them, neither of them willing to let any of it out in front of other people, but he never imagined that Wanda would be able to feel those things. Given he knew much more than he wanted about what both of them went through, he wouldn't want to be Wanda near either one of the two.

Tony saw her pause in thought, her eyes widening slightly as she came to some thought that none of the rest of them could fathom. "Why do you have that look? I've seen Bruce with that look. That's the 'I just had an idea' look," he told her.

"There were times, not often, but a few times—I could actually feel Natasha's pain when I wasn't even in the building, when I was outside," Wanda explained.

Tony blinked several times before that fully sunk in. "You want to fly around to try and feel their pain?" he questioned, "would that even work?"

"Maybe, maybe not," Wanda admitted.

"It's better than the nothing we currently have," Steve admitted.

"And that was pain Wanda felt when they were separated," Sam tacked on, "it's probably exponentially more potent when they're together."

Rhodey sighed and rubbed at his eyes, "Last time that Constantin character was involved, Romanoff was—"

Tortured, that was the word nobody was saying out loud and Tony ran his fingers through his hair just at the memory of it. Electrocuted and drugged for half a day and then she spent nearly a week trying to remember who she was and who anyone else was. He released his own sigh before he agreed with the idea, if only because it would make them all feel better to at least think they had something more than—well, nothing. "Wanda should go with Vision then," he told them, "he doesn't fly with a suit that can lost power and he's a hell of a lot faster than Wilson, you'll cover more ground than you would if one of us took you."

"Very well, I shall go with Wanda," Vision agreed, "but we should try to form more plans in the next few hours that it will take to arrive in the area where the Helicopters were last on satellite. One plan is good but more than one would be much more efficient."

Tony supposed that was a nice way of saying that Plan A of 'fly around until you find them' sucked ass and Plan B of 'fly around while Wanda tries to feel their pain' sucked equally as much. He didn't entirely disagree. They both sucked. _All_ of this sucked. He just didn't say it out loud. Nobody needed to hear it said out loud.

* * *

Natasha was being pulled towards the chair and trough when she felt the entire room shake. She could hear the enraged growl released from The Hulk next door which could mean only one thing; while she had never been able to see or hear Bruce, he had been able to see and hear everything on her side. Every single person in the room was frozen with their eyes on the blacked out safety glass. Clearly all but Natasha were now praying that the wall held up as it was meant to. She would have loved to see Ross' face if that glass cracked under The Hulk's attacks.

Seconds ticked by into minutes, nearly five if she counted correctly. It seemed their cage was as sturdy as Tony's, or maybe the plans for it had _been_ Tony's in the first place, though it certainly didn't contain the tremors left behind from The Hulk's assault nearly as well as the billionaire's. She glanced to the side as Niko led Betty out of the room by her arm and before Natasha could think twice, somebody shoved her face first into the trough of water. She managed to hold her breath but not before some water forced its way down her throat, water that was ice cold and chilled her to the bone. Given that the tremors under her feet and the vibrations in the water got louder and more intense, she imagined the Big Guy wasn't exactly thrilled with what transpired.

She didn't thrash, she didn't move, she didn't even breathe. Just when her lungs felt like they were on fire and might burst, when little white lights danced behind her closed eyes and when her breath nearly ran out, the pressure of not breathing was finally relieved as Ross pulled her back up.

"I doubt you've changed your mind after the first dunk," Ross decided without even asking if she had or hadn't, or even telling her exactly what it was he wanted her to do in the first place.

Natasha didn't hesitate to take deeper breaths for the next several rounds.

Over. And Over. And over again. She actually lost count of how many times it happened before her burning lungs received a reprieve. Even her body was shivering against her will and she merely stared at Ross as he crouched down and looked her in the eye.

"None of that was for you," he informed her with a chuckle, "it was all for him."

She shifted her eyes to follow as Ross jerked his thumb at the blacked out glass to where The Hulk was still banging around and making a hell of a fuss. She could handle torture, it was what she had been trained for after all. Would it bother her later when it was all over? Yes. But she would merely suffer in silence until her mind shoved it into a box and locked it away completely, just as she had always learned to do. Unfortunately she hadn't thought that they were using it as emotional torture for Bruce and the Big Guy. Chattering teeth and shivering aside, for Bruce's sake she asked the question even if she didn't want to, "So what is it that you really want from me? From us?"

"My sources say you call it 'The Lullaby'," Ross told her, "we need to study it, learn how it's done."

Natasha narrowed her eyes slightly as he mentioned 'sources' but she ignored it as she responded, "That's what this is all about? The Lullaby?"

"How does it work?" Ross questioned.

She frowned and tilted her head to the side before she answered honestly, mostly because the honest answer was going to piss him off, "I have no idea. It just happened."

"That's not an answer, Miss Romanoff," Ross informed her with a discontented sigh.

She shrugged her shoulders. "It's the only answer you're going to get because it's the only one I have."

That was apparently not the one he wanted because she found herself face first in the water once again. Not for nearly as long as the other times, likely just to prove the point that he didn't like the answer, and she was pulled back out less than twenty seconds later to hear Ross' new order, "I want you to go in there and do the lullaby."

It was probably stupid. What would they actually learn from something that had never been planned? Still, pride was probably a factor in her response, if not to avoid that they might just actually learn something about it that no one else seemed to know or understand, "No."

Again she met the freezing cold water and again The Hulk roared and pounded the wall between them, shaking the floor under her feet and sloshing the water around her head. Her lungs didn't only burn any more, they felt like they just might burst, and though his idea of torture still ranked rather low on the scale of things that had been done to her in the past, it _was_ still effective for forcing her body to react against her will.

Once more she was pulled back out from the water and allowed to breathe, the coughs hacking their way from her lungs without her consent, but it was a different voice that met her ears this time, "Torture isn't going to convince her, General." Madame B, or Stasia as she was now known to Natasha, was the keeper of that voice, "What you need is incentive." Natasha watched her carefully as she spoke but she certainly didn't like the sound of it. "Bring her out in the hall and put her in front of his door," Stasia ordered with a snap of her fingers to the two men who had been dunking her in the water, "she's going to want to go in there quite quickly I'd imagine."

Curiosity was now combined with the worry she previously held as she was dragged out of her own little prison room and to the door that would lead to Bruce's. This time she could see inside and The Hulk was most certainly pissed off. He was throwing everything possible at the wall that separated their rooms, and when he had nothing to throw, he simply tried to use his body as a battering ram. Ross hadn't been wrong. Torture might have been something she could endure more stoically than most other people but Bruce and the Big Guy were a completely different story. This was emotional torture for them. Other than the shivering that her body refused to let her control, and the water that dripped in steady streams from her hair and face, Natasha still managed not to react vocally or physically. She felt horrible for what Bruce was going through, having to watch what he had, but there was no chance she would let that convince her to do anything they wanted.

"Do it," Stasia ordered into a walkie talkie.

That left her confused even though she kept it hidden behind a mask. She had imagined that they simply wanted her to see what she was forcing Bruce to go through as well by not doing as they asked. Apparently she was wrong. A door opened up on the other end of the room and against her wishes Natasha felt her eyes widen slightly as she saw Niko shove Betty inside. With The Hulk as angry as he currently was, there was a chance he might not realize who it was that was inside there with him until after he did something Bruce would regret.

"What the hell are you doing?!" Ross yelled at her as he turned to Stasia with a look of rage that nearly rivaled The Hulk in the next room, "get her the hell out of there right now!"

But Stasia ignored him completely and sure enough the Big Guy turned for whoever was in the room. Betty looked absolutely horrified as he stomped towards her and there was nowhere for the brunette to run or hide.

"Open it! Open it now!" Natasha ordered them in an instant.

Stasia half-chuckled before she opened the door and Natasha didn't hesitate to run inside. If Bruce's other half killed Betty, she was more than certain that would turn out to be something he wouldn't ever be able to handle or live with, and unfortunately he would have to if she didn't stop this. She imagined that even the tiniest mistake would set Bruce off and put him back into solitude and the self-loathing misery, and she couldn't let that happen, not again.

She heard the door swish shut behind her and she barely heard Stasia's words just before they did, "See, General? Incentive. She wishes to protect him just as he wishes to protect her."

"Big Guy!" Natasha shouted out across the room.

She was almost afraid he wouldn't hear her over the thunderous sound of his own voice and it turned out to be an accurate one. He was too angry. Too filled with malice to hear her and instead she moved fast, as fast as she possibly could. Fortunately luck was on her side because he wasn't running full speed at Betty, something behind all the anger probably trying to remind him that she wasn't a threat. Natasha managed to grab hold of the brunette and shove her aside, albeit it might have been a bit roughly, it did the intended job. Betty went to the ground a few feet away and Natasha took the brunt of the hit instead. With the wall right there, she hit it in an instant and it sucked the air straight from her still burning lungs.

The Hulk froze in some sort of baffled horror as he stared at down at her trying to catch her breath, likely confused with how she had come from seemingly nowhere. Natasha watched as she met his gaze and he looked almost apologetic, not an emotion she had ever seen on his face before but he seemed to have come back to his senses, or at least he was content on ignoring Betty rather than trying to pancake her after the incident. Natasha finally managed to convince her lungs to expand and contract again as the Big Guy crouched down and studied her with worry and concern.

The most surprising thing was when he reached that enlarged green hand out towards her the way she normally would to him. "Tasha..." those two syllables came out in a low rumble from his mouth. Not only was she stunned that he chose to speak given that she had only heard a handful of words from him before, but he chose to say her name, or most of it anyways. It was funny really. Bruce hardly ever shortened her name, she could count on one hand the times he did, and when he did do it he used 'Nat'. The Big Guy was using the opposite part of her name. Then he shifted that giant green palm to his chest and patted it, "Hulk sorry."

Natasha blinked her eyes several times in disbelief. Ross and Red Room may have just gotten a lot more than they had originally asked for, though they still hadn't gotten exactly what they wanted, she imagined this was like candy to them. "It's okay..." she assured him as she slowly sat up and ignored the pain that continuously throbbed throughout her body, "that wasn't on you, Big Guy." She glanced over at Betty who was remaining remarkably calm and still given that a rather angry Hulk, that had just tried to smear her against a wall, was currently just a few feet away. "You don't want to hurt her, do you Big Guy?" she questioned softly. The surprise on the brunette's face was genuine as The Hulk's volatile brown eyes shifted between Natasha and Betty. Recognition lit his eyes but he still didn't seem sure on what he wanted to do about Betty being in 'his' room. "You know Betty," she reminded him as she held her hand out to him, "just like you know me."

Fortunately, Betty was keen to keep silent, something Natasha was grateful for. If the brunette said something, something that the Big Guy didn't like, then Natasha wasn't sure how he might react. The only other time Natasha had jumped between him and someone else was with Pepper, and Pepper had not only keep silent but had done exactly as Natasha wanted her to without her having to ask the other redhead to. She wasn't so sure Betty would be able to read her like Pepper had been able to. Betty didn't know her, and to be honest, all Natasha had to go on with Betty was her own instincts. She trusted her instincts, they were usually spot on, but she also knew there were occasions where they led her to do the wrong things even if they were for the right reasons...or what she thought were the right reasons. Who was she to actually know the difference?

"This is what they want," Natasha informed him next. "I know you're mad, at them...and even at me for not just agreeing to do this," she added on as she watched him. The narrowing of his eyes told her she was right. He was angry that she accepted being tortured instead of just doing what they wanted her to do. He was mad that he had absolutely no one to take out his anger on. She nodded her head to her hand before she spoke again, "It's up to you Big Guy. If you want to give them what they want, then we can do this, or we can stick it to them and prove to them you aren't a monster, that you can control yourself."

The Hulk pressed that enormous palm against her own and for a moment she thought he was actually giving in. Then he smirked, nodded, and proceeded to plop down on his rear end and fold his arm much like a petulant child. It was almost laughable to see him do it and Natasha heard Betty chuckle behind her. It seemed though that it only made Stasia try a new method to throw Natasha off her game.

"How about I tell you a story, Natasha?"

Natasha shifted her gaze to look at the blonde woman behind the wall.

"It goes like this," Stasia began, "once upon a time, there were twenty-seven girls already chosen and brought to Red Room. Only one girl was left, chosen and only in need to be retrieve, but...that girl wasn't supposed to be you."

Natasha narrowed her eyes slightly at the comment.

"Unfortunately, the father of the twenty-eighth girl knew we wanted him for—other purposes," Stasia informed her, "so, he gave an ultimatum. We could release his daughter from the program and we would have his full cooperation, or we could find ourselves a new inside man for our purposes. Unfortunately at the time, we needed him. It would have been too much trouble to get someone else of his status, or to get someone else and wait for them to reach that status."

"Why are you telling me this?" Natasha questioned.

"Because the girl who was supposed to be in your place is the very woman you're protecting right now."

Natasha froze as she shifted her eyes to Betty who was wide-eyed behind her.

"You were never intended for this," Stasia told her, "you were too young. Four years old, the youngest to ever enter the program, but we needed an immediate replacement. As it turned out, although you were never supposed to be who you are now, you did become the best. You see, we thought your weakness would be your youth, that you would lack too many social skills from having no experience with anything of the sort—but in fact your youth was your strength. While the other girls all wished for the life they knew they should have had, you could never remember your life before Red Room. All you knew was what _we_ taught you. You were never distracted by what should or could have been." Natasha could see the worry mixed with the anger as The Hulk studied her. She knew she was keeping her face neutral but the truth was that she didn't entirely know how to feel about any of this new knowledge, if any of it was even true. "I didn't want this life for you though, you were such a good dancer even at such a young age, that was what I wanted for you," Stasia informed her next.

Natasha felt her brow wrinkle against her will as she shifted her gaze back from Betty to the blonde behind the glass. "Why would you have cared? Why would you have wanted anything for me?" she dared to ask.

The smile that formed on the older woman's lips wasn't at all reassuring and Natasha wasn't entirely sure she wanted to know the answer even before the woman gave it to her, "I have my reasons." Stasia's smile was unsettling as she responded further, "We truly did a remarkable job of changing your memories. Your mind was so easily manipulated at that age. The vulnerability of a child's mind is a fragile thing." Nothing. No words could form from Natasha's lips, no coherent thought seemed to come forward in her mind. All she could do was stare at the woman who made her what she was. "If it weren't for her, for Betty, you could have had such a normal life. A good life. You could have danced, gotten married, had children," Stasia offered up next and that ache throbbed through her entire body as she was reminded of all the she would never have, "is that really someone you want to protect?"

If she was attempting to put Natasha's mind into a dilemma of uncertainty and cloud it with doubt about what was true and what wasn't, Stasia had certainly done a stand up job. It was like overloading her with information that her brain _wanted_ to sort out as true or false but it _couldn't_.

"Maybe—maybe she's lying to you..." Betty offered up in a softer voice than Natasha had ever heard anyone use with her before. It was as though the brunette could tell how this had affected her and that likely wasn't good, because it meant everyone could see it.

She probably was lying. Betty was probably right. But it certainly didn't stop Natasha's brain from trying to work through it all.

And it was too much. Just too much after the last few days. All it did was leave her with an empty feeling.

"Hey..." Betty's soft voice came through her head as her hand rested on her shoulder, "I—I don't know if what she said is true, but if it is..."

Natasha shook her head. "If it is then that doesn't make it your fault either," she assured the other woman, "it makes it her fault, and your father's fault, but not yours."

"I'm so sorry..." Betty offered up next.

"Don't be," Natasha insisted as she looked from Stasia and met Ross' weary gaze. She took a seat beside the Big Guy who was currently in the midst of giving Ross a look that would make any normal person piss their pants in fear. He glanced down at her with a snort, a smirk, and finally a nod as he crossed those large green arms over his chest in defiance. She did much the same, trying not to chuckle when Betty actually sat down beside her. Apparently the brunette wasn't going to try and leave the room, not that Natasha would have tried to stop her, but it seemed Betty was being defiant herself. "So, which one of you is going to come in here and make me do what you want now?" she called out.

Stasia just chuckled on the other side of the glass before walking away. It certainly wasn't the reaction that Natasha had imagined she would get from the woman. Fortunately, Ross certainly seemed pissed off and Natasha imagined that was a combination of everything that transpired in the last fifteen minutes. His secrets being out, not getting what he had been after, and now his daughter defying him. He was having a shit day and Natasha sincerely hoped it only got worse.

* * *

 **Alrighty guys. See you in the next chapter! Just remember I'm working with a tablet here, I'm not nearly as fast as I would be on a damn laptop... Depressing, I know.**


	9. Chapter 9

A big shout out to my 100th reviewer for this story, **Envied kamikaze** , and thanks to everyone else as well! I really appreciate all the feedback, plus, 17 reviews for each of the last two chapters? I'm completely blown away and grateful to each and every single one of you.

 **Chapter 8** :

" _The tragedy of life is not death,  
but what dies inside of us while living."_

Ross was beside himself as Stasia ignored the problem and left him to stare at his daughter sitting defiantly inside the room with Bruce Banner's beast, and Natasha Romanoff, a woman who was a monster without a transformation into a monstrosity. Betty should have never been in the room in the first place and she was certainly never supposed to know what Stasia had just told her. He took a deep breath to calm his frayed nerves before he followed after the woman, whom he found moments later flipping through a folder as she sat behind a desk. "You ruined all my progress," he informed her with a growl.

Stasia chuckled as she placed the folder down on the desk and folded her hands atop it. "I find it amusing that you think that at any point during that little waterboading act, you were in fact actually in control of her," she commented with smirk.

"I _was_ in control," Ross reminded her.

"You were never in control, Thaddeus," Stasia politely informed him, "she let it happen so that she could learn what you wanted from her, from both of them. I don't think that I need to remind you who trained her to do that and if I hadn't come in when I had then you would have told her everything. That was something I simply couldn't have."

Ross sneered at her. Stasia was cold, calculating and just downright sinister. He had learned long ago that she held his defiance twenty-seven years ago with contempt and that hadn't changed after all this time. "You could have gotten my daughter killed with that failed _incentive_ of yours," he reminded her, "and I won't forget that."

She snickered as she tilted her head to the side and gave him an unnerving little smile, "You have yet to prove to me that your daughter is of any use to us and until you do then her life means absolutely nothing to me. In fact Thaddeus, I'm beginning to question just how useful _you_ are to me these days."

"You have even less control over Romanoff than I do," Ross told her with a shake of his head. "She's never going to do anything that we ask her to do, not unless you find something to hold over her head," he tacked on.

Yet that smile on her face never faded with his words and that left Ross feeling unsettled and uncertain. "There was a point where you insisted this wasn't the serum's doing, that your daughter could do what Natasha can and talk the beast down, yet I didn't see any sign that could happen ten minutes ago," she reminded him with a laugh.

"You threw her in without warning! She was face to face with his monster once before with no ill-results to her. She just needs to be prepared—"

"No, you proved almost a year ago that there's no preparation necessary for what Natasha does," Stasia interrupted, "because when you had Constantin shoot Banner and turn into The Hulk on the streets of New York, Natasha had no preparation for _that_ and yet she prevailed. No one was injured and she succeeded in turning him back into Banner. Unfortunately your daughter almost got flattened and we didn't even shoot Banner this time."

Ross could actually feel his eye twitching at her comments.

"The _problem_ is in us needing to prove without a shadow of a doubt that it is in fact the serum that connects them and gives Natasha this control over him. _Love_ is useless for what we need and while I used mind altering methods to make certain in her youth that she could never develop those feelings for another, Banner developing those feelings for her was not something that I could control nor was it expected," Stasia pointed out to him next.

Ross chuckled at her choice of words and shook his head. He leaned against the wall, crossed his arms, then grinned before he commented, "It must have really pained you to admit you had no control over something."

Stasia did the one thing that continually unnerved him when it came to both her and Natasha Romanoff; she stared at him with empty eyes that held absolutely no emotion and ignored what he said completely as she spoke, " _Love_ is not a luxury that we can afford to have in the way, Thaddeus, and now that I'm thinking about it more clearly perhaps your daughter is of use to us after all."

"You will not use my daughter to go and form some lovers quarrel between Banner and Romanoff," Ross warned her with a glare, "and I refuse to tell her to go in there and and cozy up to that monster."

"Oh you misunderstand, I don't need her to make Bruce love her again," Stasia assured him, "I believe she's already put a bit of a wedge between them just with her presence. Unlike you, I was watching Banner when Elizabeth went into Natasha's room the first time. He was entirely uncomfortable, and given his easy to read face, he didn't seem all too keen to trust in your daughter's sincerity."

"And as happy as I am to hear he's not madly in love with Betty anymore, how does that help you exactly?" Ross dared to question. He had given up early on with trying to understand how a sociopath's mind worked and Stasia was most certainly a sociopath in his books.

"Because Natasha _does_ believe your daughter is innocent in all of this. She had no idea that Banner could see and hear her until he became the beast during your attempt to make her do as you wished, so that conversation with your daughter wasn't played out for any party's benefit, nor was she doing it for Banner's sake," Stasia informed him, "so you see, Elizabeth doesn't actually need to make Banner love her again, I just need her around to keep nudging that wedge further and further until one of them cracks."

He chuckled and shook his head, "You certainly have a strange way of treating Romanoff considering—"

"Considering nothing," Stasia cut him off and again gave him that blank stare, "I do what I have to do for my country just as you do yours."

Ross shook his head and snickered. It was no longer about doing things for his country, this was about making sure that alien armies could be fought off; that the Avengers could be kept in check; that robot armies _created_ by the Avengers wouldn't almost destroy the world. _"_ Whatever helps you sleep at night. So now that you've decided to play Anti-Cupid with those two, you do still have to get Romanoff back out of the room, the room _you_ sent her into, just to remind you who messed _that_ little situation up."

Stasia released a breathy little laugh as she quirked a single eyebrow up at him. "Don't you worry about that. I have a fail-safe in place, one that I've had for twenty years. So she'll either willingly leave that room or Banner will hand her right over to us, but whichever the method she'll be out of that room soon enough, right after I drive that wedge between them just a little bigger."

He was less than thrilled with whatever she seemed to have up her sleeve regarding his daughter, but given that it meant Stasia no longer considered her disposable and she wasn't planning to try and throw Betty at Banner, for now he would have to accept it. Stasia was holding too many of the cards and he needed to get a few more of his own if he was going to even up the playing field. Fortunately Stasia was also aware that she couldn't really take him off the playing field, not when he still held one ace up his sleeve that nobody else would be able to give to her.

But she was also right that love would be useless in both of their plans. While Betty being able to control The Hulk would be useful to him, it would be useless to Red Room. If Betty could do it then he would have to get Banner and Betty out of Sri Lanka before Stasia realized her plans were no longer viable. At least if it truly wasn't the serum that allowed Natasha control then Banner would still be useful to him, though it might also require him to get the assassin out as well, if only to continue to keep Banner in line. He and his beast had both proved already that either of them would follow orders to protect her.

And the beast, The Hulk...regardless of that fact he had actually hurt Natasha when she intervened, it was fascinating when he had actually _apologized_ to her.

That was useful information even though everything else had turned out to be a failure thus far.

* * *

Bruce wasn't entirely sure how long the Other Guy actually stayed out but his other half managed to transition back to Bruce himself in a less forced way, much like he had when he had given him back control to save Natasha's life in India. It didn't hurt any less and it certainly didn't leave him with a happy feeling, but at least he wasn't left on the verge of passing out. It was a strange development between him and the Other Guy, as though they had finally reached some level of understanding of one another. He also knew exactly what it was that and the Other Guy were finally able to agree on.

Bruce looked to the side at Natasha.

She was what they finally agreed on. He noted that the red of her hair was dry with unruly waves throughout them and that Betty was fidgeting just beside her. He watched as those fiercely green eyes of Natasha studied him in return, shifted down to his bare chest, and then they slowly raised back up to meet his own eyes with the barest hint of amusement hidden within them. He also remembered that there was a time when he wouldn't have noticed that small detail in her eyes. He wouldn't have noticed the amusement hidden behind the vacancy.

Regardless of the fact that Bruce knew Natasha wouldn't be happy with it, he turned and placed his hands on either side of her face, studying the tiny cut on her cheekbone from where she had been hit by Ross earlier. He needed it, just for that small moment, just to prove to himself that the Other Guy hadn't killed her before. If she was hurt then she was hiding it well, but it wasn't the first hit she had taken from his other half and Bruce wasn't sure it would be the last; and she _seemed_ okay. She didn't say a word or try to make him stop his show of affection, instead she watched him with unblinking eyes and he finally said the only thing his lips would offer, "Natasha..."

The smallest hint that she understood what went through his mind in that moment appeared within her expression and her eyes softened ever-so-slightly before she stated more than asked the question in a neutral tone, "You remember."

"Every second..." Bruce admitted with a frown. He wished he didn't. He wished his mind could simply block it out but instead he was seeing Ross shove her face first into that trough of water over and over again in his mind. "Natasha...you could have stopped them before they ever started but you _chose_ not to, why?!" he whispered the question, knowing that not only was Betty just beside Natasha but that ears were likely listening in and prying eyes were watching them. It was the reason Natasha was mostly hiding behind her mask, the reason why her voice was giving no indication of what she felt.

She was quiet for a moment and Bruce knew that she was having an internal debate on what to say to him. She raised one hand up over top of his hand on her face and her fingertips felt soft as they brushed over his own before she removed his hand, followed by the other, from her face. Then she gave him an answer, "We needed to know what they wanted. Letting him think he was in control meant he would say more than he meant to—"

"So you let him _torture_ you?!" Bruce growled out in another whisper.

"Bruce," his name came out of her lips in an even tone but he recognized her attempt to calm him down. It seemed unnecessary to be so hidden, not when their enemies so clearly knew about whatever was between them, but he had to accept that it was just how she operated. She was showing no weakness, not if she could help it.

"I get it. I know it's who you are, I do," he told her with a shake of his head, "and I know that you use that as part of your job but—but I can't—I can't ever watch that again..."

He almost missed it, the smallest flash of guilt that passed over her expression the moment he said it, then gone almost before he could comprehend it. Bruce never meant to make _her_ feel guilty when _she_ was the one who had been tortured. He closed his eyes for a moment when he heard her release the smallest of breaths, and while he understood that she was keeping that small space of distance between them because of their predicament, he hated it all the same. "I thought the Big Guy would have blocked it out," she informed him quietly, "but they want something much more than just studying the Lullaby, Bruce. No matter what it is, I don't plan on giving it to them."

"Not willingly," Bruce reminded her, "Natasha...you know what they're capable of—"

"I lived with it, so yes, I know exactly what they're capable of," Natasha pointed out with a shrug of indifference.

Betty's quiet voice interrupted them before he could give another frustrated comment. She also reminded Bruce of his and Natasha's close proximity in the brunette's presence when she spoke, "You said...or rather Stasia—Stasia said that Natasha's serum is the connection between her and...well, you."

"Not _me_..." Bruce insisted regardless of his and the Other Guy's new found 'somewhat' understanding with each other.

"Him then," Betty corrected, "and I'm not saying she's right, but _if_ she is? Imagine what they could do..."

He thought a little more clearly for the first time and Betty's words hit him with a big dose of reality. "An army...they want an army they can control..." he mumbled out.

"Even if that's true, if the serum is what makes this work then on the end of making Hulks, all they'd need is to gamma radiate people with the serum in the room. But me? They spent sixteen years on me alone. Twenty-eight girls and only one comes out in the end. They would never be able to make an army in their lifetime and probably not even in the next," came Natasha's input.

"Maybe they keep all the girls—" Bruce attempted but he never got to finish.

"That would never work," she assured him, "Red Room is effective because it's kill or be killed. It would lose any semblance of working if they took that aspect away. They wouldn't get another me doing it that way, and given that I'm not dead, I'm clearly still what they want."

It came out before Bruce could stop it, "They could never make another you because they didn't make you at all, Natasha. You made yourself and you did it _despite_ them."

It also didn't have the intended effect because Natasha merely stared at him and blinked a few times before she gave the barest of shrugs, "Considering the things I've done both for them and 'despite' them, that's not really saying all that much."

Betty seemed to know to change the subject yet again before it could turn into a debate because her question came out of left field, and though the answer to it was obvious given Natasha's appearance earlier, she voiced it anyways, "My father...he didn't just hit you, he tortured you. He really did it, didn't he?"

Bruce remained silent at that. He knew Betty had always tried to see the good in Ross but it seemed now that the veil covering her eyes was completely gone. Natasha was watching the brunette with a blank face before the dismissive response came from those full lips, "Personally, I think he could have at least put more effort into it. I hadn't showered since before he first started coming after me so at least now my hair is clean, but unfortunately that only counts for my head. Maybe for round two I'll request a complete hose down."

He recognized it for what it was; Natasha was simply being Natasha with her dark humor while also demeaning Ross should he be listening in. Betty was staring at her with clear uncertainty and Bruce couldn't help that the barest smile formed upon his lips. That sort of dismissive response and empty expression was the reason that he originally hadn't been too fond of Natasha. It was almost funny that now it had morphed into being one of the things he found endearing about her, probably because he was slowly learning that just because her face said nothing didn't mean that she actually felt nothing.

It was strange when the silence once again resounded around the three of them. Most men would be thrilled to have two women, each of them stunning, sitting by their side. Bruce couldn't find it in him to be one of of those men when he loved one of the women and years ago had loved the other. It was a downright mortifying situation that he had never once imagined himself to be in. Tony would be beside himself if he could see it. The billionaire would be making joke after joke, and that thought at least calmed him down a little. At least he could be grateful for these stupid pants that Tony and Natasha had made. It would have been truly awkward if he was forced to sit here buck naked with the two of them.

Once again he felt a fierce gaze on him but this time it wasn't Natasha's. He shifted his own eyes towards the safety glass wall and saw Stasia back on the other side. Those blue eyes were ice as she tilted her head to the side while she studied him. There was a time when he thought Natasha was the most unnerving person in the world when she would look at somebody like that but he had just been proven wrong. This was the woman who made the redheaded assassin beside him the way she was. The sort of person who would take a four-year-old child and trained her to spy and kill.

"Natasha."

Stasia's voice was as cold as her eyes and equally as unnerving, then he watched as Natasha returned that empty look with equal fervor, not bothering to give the older woman a verbal response. Bruce had never seen anything like it before in his life. The two of them stared directly at each other in a battle that he wasn't sure he would ever fully comprehend.

"I'm giving you a chance to walk out of there of your own volition," Stasia told her next.

Natasha never batted an eye but Bruce could sense the discomfort radiating off of her beside him. Whether she admitted it or not, showed it or not, Natasha was effected by the presence of Stasia. He also couldn't fault her for it, though he admired the strength of her conviction when she responded with a stern and simple, "No."

Stasia released a small sigh of obvious disappointment. "Very well," she agreed.

Bruce watched the woman step out of their sight before he glanced back over at Natasha. The redhead wasn't just effected, he could practically feel the uneasiness reverberate off of her. He could also see the uneasiness plain as day on Betty's face. It seemed Stasia made all three of them uncomfortable but Bruce's only worry was that he could actually see Natasha's in her eyes. It wasn't completely hidden this time and that bothered him on a new level. "Natasha..." he murmured, then he watched as she glanced over at him, "she's about to do something...isn't she?"

Natasha gave the barest of nods to acknowledge his question before she answered him vocally, "And at the very least I imagine it'll be more inventive than shoving me face first into water." Betty actually flinched a little at the words and just as her mouth opened to speak, Natasha made sure to cut her off with a dismissive shake of her head, "Don't apologize for his actions, Betty."

"I swear...I never knew about any of this," Betty insisted, "if I did—"

"I don't consider his actions a reflection on you," Natasha assured her, "you're not your father. I knew that the second that you first came into my room."

Betty gave the smallest nod but she didn't say another word.

Stasia walked back into their line of sight with a folder in her hands and Bruce felt his brow wrinkle as she flipped it open. She removed a sheet of paper and then flicked those blue eyes in their direction. "Did you think that the file you found on yourself in the archipelagos held the truth, Natasha?" she questioned. "Some of it was true, that way you would believe you had the real thing, but other parts were lies...and quite a lot was omitted," she told them next, "so, now do you want to leave that room of your own accord?"

There it was. Bruce could feel the anxiety coming off Natasha even if there was no visible sign, yet once more she gave the same answer with the same conviction, "No."

One corner of Stasia's lips quirked into a sideways smile as she looked back down at the sheet of paper. "I haven't done this in fifteen years and I'm a little rusty," the blonde told them, "so I hope you don't mind that I read from the sheet."

That anxiety was coming off of Natasha in waves and Bruce looked over at her. If he thought she would listen, he would have just told her to agree and walk out of the room, but he knew for a fact that she would never do it of her own volition. Then again, now that he thought about it maybe it wasn't Natasha who was the anxious one, maybe it was him. His eyes shifted to see Natasha's pinky finger just barely tapping the floor and he realized it was probably both of them. She was showing a sign. Natasha didn't give things away, not unless she wanted to, but he was almost certain she wasn't even aware of that single finger that was fidgeting.

" _Viduam. Requiem. Oculos."_

Bruce narrowed his eyes in confusion. Was the woman speaking Latin? He wasn't familiar with it on any level but he was at least smart enough to know that she was speaking a single word at a time. It wasn't a sentence. Stasia was reading a list of words.

"Bruce...something's wrong," Betty's words made him look back at Natasha and he saw what she meant in an instant.

The redhead's eyes were dazed and she looked like she was swaying a little in place. Bruce didn't hesitate to place a hand on her shoulder to steady her, "Nat..."

" _Prope_."

"What the hell are you doing to her?!" Bruce growled out the question at Stasia. Natasha's breath hitched and he turned back to her, placing his hand on her other shoulder and moving himself in front of her to put himself between her and Stasia. "Nat, look at me," he ordered, but it was like nobody was home because those green eyes, normally fierce and unyielding, were now glassy and on the verge of rolling to the back of her head.

" _Somnun_."

That last word seemed to be the final straw. Natasha fell forward the moment the word left Stasia's mouth. Bruce got a better hold on her as her head rested on his shoulder and he could feel his heart racing the moment he felt how shallow her breaths were on his bare skin. "Natasha..." he murmured her name but it was ineffective, just as ineffective as trying to shake her.

Betty was leaning over now, her face close to Natasha's and her hand resting on the redhead's cheek, but Natasha's open eyes never responded; no dilation of the pupils, nothing. "Bruce, she's catatonic..." she whispered.

It didn't stop him from trying to get through to her. He placed his hand on her cheek but she never once reacted. Her eyes stayed glazed and she didn't move an inch.

" _Bonum nox noctis._ " Natasha's eyes drooped to a close and he felt dangerously close to losing control as he looked back to Stasia behind the glass. She was folding the sheet in half and tucking it into her pocket as her eyes stared directly back at him. "Now the choice falls to you, Doctor Banner," she informed him, "but the end result will be the same. You will give her to me. It's just a matter of if you do it now, or it you do it later. So you can put her by the door and let us take Natasha out of the room or you can sit and try to be defiant, but we're patient and we can wait until you realize she's dehydrating and then you'll do the same thing anyways. Would you prefer now to save yourself the headache that is very clearly growing or later?"

Bruce didn't know what to do if he was being honest with himself. Natasha's breaths were slow and even. At least that helped him to breathe just a little bit easier.

"Maybe she's lying..." Betty offered up softly.

It was possible but Bruce sincerely doubted it. A handful of words put Natasha to sleep and neither shaking her nor talking to her had any effect towards waking her. He imagined there was another set of words needed to bring the redhead back to reality, but none of this had been in her Red Room file, not that he was aware of. "What you just did, it wasn't in her file," Bruce stated as he stared at the woman.

The corner of Stasia's lips curled into a half-smile as she shook her head. "Her file? You really thought we would leave her actual records for her to find so easily?" she questioned. "We trained killers, Doctor, killers that resided in a child's body with a child's mind," she reminded him, "there needs to be a back-up should one of them become...out of control."

"You talk like they weren't people," Betty mentioned, "they were kids. She's a human being and you treat her like she's—"

"Natasha is a weapon, Miss Ross, not a person," Stasia informed the brunette, "and for our needs we've allowed her that essence of free will for the last eleven years, but that end now." Once again Bruce felt the anger flare up at the comment but Stasia was speaking again before he could say anything, "Do you believe she loves you, Doctor Banner?"

Bruce frowned in an instant. "She feels as much as she can, as much as _you_ haven't already taken from her," he told her, "and being brainwashed for twenty years doesn't make her less human than anyone else, it makes her a better person than most for becoming good _despite_ you."

"But you love her regardless of her rather shallow emotional capacity," Stasia said next, "I find that fascinating. You had to know or at least have some idea that she lacked the ability to return your sentiments, so I suppose that does speak well to how alluring she can be."

Bruce pursed his lips shut, staring at the older woman but not commenting on that. He supposed she hadn't really voiced it as a question but rather as a fact, so responding to it wasn't actually necessary anyways. She knew what he felt for Natasha whether he gave it words or not. He supposed his actions spoke more than words probably ever could.

"And because you love her, I don't think you're going to test just how patient we can be," she also told him.

And she was right. He couldn't just leave Natasha unconscious until she dehydrated. To be honest, he was ridiculously tired of being given _no_ real choice. He understood now why Natasha had been trying so hard to get him to allow her to leave in India. This had been exactly what she had been trying to avoid by trying to run, trying to hide, and by attempting to leave every other person out of this. She didn't want to be used against him the way she was being used now, but he would rather have her used against him than have her dead, even if she couldn't quite believe she was worth saving.

So he started to get up, grateful when Betty helped him since he still had a hold of Natasha.

"Good, now place her here by the door," Stasia ordered.

Once he was all the way up he got his other arm under Natasha's knees and lifted her. It was something that Bruce, not The Hulk, had only done one other time back in Russia and he almost forgot just how small she actually was. For a woman who could use her entire body as a weapon, use only her legs to flip a fully grown man over and onto the ground, she was remarkably light.

It was only when he reached the door that Stasia spoke again and he looked up at her words, "You want to kill me, I can see it in your eyes, Doctor."

She wasn't wrong. It was that same feeling he had with Wanda at the Avenger's Tower half a year ago. Twice now he felt like he could kill someone without a hint of turning green and that left him more uneasy than the last time with Wanda. He had chalked that first time up to frayed nerves and leftover remnants of the vision and aftermath that Wanda had done to him, but this time—this time it was all him. "You really have no idea," Bruce informed her as he placed Natasha carefully down on the floor beside the door. The rapid beating of his heart told him just how much he hated doing this and he hesitated in leaving her there, resting the back of his hand on her cheek.

He glanced over when Betty crouched down beside them and she gave him a halfhearted smile that didn't reach her eyes as she spoke, "I'll go with her. I know that's not a huge help but at least then she's not alone..."

It was probably ridiculous that Betty's offer did make him feel somewhat better, but Natasha did seem to hold more faith in his former flame than he did and he supposed he could at least trust her instincts. "You don't have to do that," he assured her.

"She protected me," came that reminder of what transpired hours ago, "so yeah, I sort of think I do."

"Now that we've decided both of them are leaving, Doctor, I'm going to need you to go back to the other side of the room," Stasia informed him.

Bruce released a deep breath before he stood up, ignoring the painful reminder that he was getting too old to be crouching when his knees felt creaky, and he backed away to the other side of the room. Backing away didn't stop him from staring Stasia down, which seemed to amuse the woman to no end, though she never said a word. The second he reached the wall at the other end, the door slid open and it took all his restraint not to move or turn green when two guards pulled Natasha out.

Instead of letting Betty out, Stasia appeared in the doorway and shoved the brunette back inside and Bruce felt his brow wrinkle in an instant as the door closed between the two.

He watched Betty's blue eyes look back at him and then the door that trapped her with him. "Let her out," Bruce told the blonde as she chuckled on the other side of the glass wall.

"I don't need her, so no" Stasia informed him. "As long as she's in there, her father will be much more cooperative and a lot less mouthy," and she gestured to Natasha who hung by her arms between the two guards as they dragged her down the hall, "because I have the only insurance that your beast won't mow his little princess down." Stasia chuckled as she tapped the door between herself and Betty, "Don't worry dear, maybe I'll decide your useful to me in some other way."

Bruce rubbed at his face as the hall emptied of Stasia, the guards and Natasha. All he could do was sit down and try to calm himself because right now he didn't quite trust the Other Guy with Betty's life, not after the last time where he had hurt Natasha.

The gentle yet uncertain hand on his shoulder made him look at Betty as she sat down beside him. "I'm sorry, Bruce...for my father and what he did—both back then and now."

He took a deep breath before he nodded his head. "Natasha was right..." he told her, "you don't have to apologize for him."

* * *

 _Stalingrad, Russia  
January, 2000._

 _The blindfold was over Natalia's eyes and her hands were tied at her wrists in front of her. There were still twelve other girls left, a total of thirteen if she counted herself among them, but she didn't. She stopped considering herself part of the group years ago. There was no room to believe she could fail, not if she wanted to live._

 _She counted the minutes into hours, her feet having long ago gone numb from the snow and freezing weather, but she never moved. They told her not to move. That meant you didn't sit, didn't take a step, you just stayed in place. Her ears, even against the whipping and whistling of the harsh wind around her, told her that at least two of the girls were no longer standing. To be frank, she wasn't quite sure they were sitting either. Two girls had taken off at a run shortly after they were left alone here, but given the gunshots Natalia heard not long after, she assumed that they were no longer alive._

 _They called it a gauntlet, though instead of surviving a harsh obstacle course, it was surviving the harshness of the Russian winter. Less than thirty minutes went by before she heard two more girls go down. She knew that meant that even if they weren't dead now, they would be when they were retrieved to go back to the facility._

 _She felt the pins and needles fight through the numbness of her feet as she curled and uncurled her toes continuously. It wasn't much but it was better than completely losing the feeling and winding up the next one fallen. Only a few minutes went by before she heard yet another girl fall._

 _They were beginning to drop like flies. Her instincts told her that any of the last six of them could be the next and last to fall. They told them that only when five girls were left standing would it be over. Of course, now that she though about it, technically they only said not to move anywhere. They said nothing about moving a single body part._

 _Natalia lifted her foot straight up and then swung it sideways. It met with no one and she had to assume that was a girl who was already down or one of the ones who ran right in the beginning. She planted her foot back down, raised her other boot, and did the same. Her foot connected with the shin of the girl next to her and took her down in an instant. She heard the girl curse in Russian, recognized her as Tatiana, then heard her try to scramble back up. The gunshot made sure the girl didn't._

" _Remove your blindfolds."_

 _Natalia removed hers and met the icy gaze of Madame B. The woman was smirking at her, clearly amused that none of the others girls had thought to do the same, or perhaps amused that Natalia had been the only one willing to do it. Even so she watched as Madame B waved the other girls to be taken away and now Natalia was the only girl left besides the girls quivering and shaking in the snow._

" _Well done, Natalia. Now finish off the other girls and you can come home," Madame B ordered, slicing the rope around her hands with the knife and then placing it in her hands._

 _She tightened her fingertips around the hilt and never wavered as she went to the nearest girl. She only had to take out four of them herself, and it wasn't so hard when she told herself that she was actually doing them a favor, putting them out of their misery._

 _So she did it without thought, without hesitation. She would have preferred a quick death over freezing in the snow if she were them._

* * *

Natasha snapped her eyes open in an instant, instinctively reaching up and grasping her hand tightly around the throat of whoever's hand had just been on her. Her heart was beating rapidly as she squeezed her fingers tighter. It wasn't just self-preservation now.

All she could see was red.

All she wanted to do was _kill_.

* * *

 **On a side note, this time I can't blame writing on my tablet. I sort of got distracted playing the new Star Ocean game. Had to convince myself to stop playing it and finally finish writing this for you guys. Sorry about that!**

 **On another side note, happy 4th of July!**

 **And credit for Natasha's comment on her hair being clean goes to Black Victor Cachat xD**


	10. Chapter 10

Sorry for my hiatus everyone, it was very unexpected but I haven't given up on the story and I'm pleased to say I'm back in action. I thought I would have been much earlier this month, but it took ages for them to reconnect my internet. Ugh. As per usual, thanks to **Black' Victor Cachat** for the continuous input into the story, and the tiny PoV of the guard in the beginning is done on their request, as is the third.

 **Warning** : Increased violence after the first line break of this chapter.

 **Chapter 9** :

" _There's a hunger, a longing to escape,  
From the life I live when I'm awake."_

It was fascinating, truly it was. She was supposed to be deadly and yet a handful of words had put the tiny redhead right to sleep. He carried her with ease to the lab, unable to help thinking just how pathetic she really was. _This_ was the infamous Black Widow? The woman who had killed a dozen men today alone, killed men that he knew, that he was friends with? She couldn't have weighed more than a hundred and twenty pounds and she probably only stood at five and a half feet.

Yet she was the killer. A beautiful, stunning, tiny and meek woman was the one who murdered all those men single-handedly.

Not to mention that he could hear 'mom and dad' fighting down the hall.

"Let me get this straight...you let that murderess kill almost two dozen men when you could have dropped her with a couple of words?" came Ross' question.

"I was saving it for a special occasion," Stasia informed the American general nonchalantly.

He shook his head as he stepped inside the lab and placed the redhead down on the metal table.

"They want the steel cuffs over her wrists and ankles," the doctor in the lab told him, "no surprises or breakouts this time like she did with those handcuffs in her room."

"Yeah, yeah," he grumbled out, "don't see why it matters right now. They said she won't wake up unless they wake her up anyways."

The doctor just shrugged, "Not our call. I just do what I'm told. You work for Balshovich long enough and you learn you don't ask questions, you just do what you're told."

"So Doc, which do you think is scarier, Balshovich or Romanoff?" he asked the other man.

The doctor chuckled, "Romanoff terrifies me."

He prodded the redhead with his knuckles. "I dunno, she's not so scary right nah—" he grunted the second that slender hand wrapped around his throat. It happened faster than he could comprehend and he watched as those green eyes opened, the fury in them clear to see as she sat up. That idiot doctor had his back turned to them and was absolutely clueless as Romanoff silently shifted off the metal table and clenched her fingers tighter around his throat.

Breathing became impossible as she quietly lowered him to the ground before darkness fully enveloped him and breath escaped him completely.

* * *

Natasha shifted her eyes towards the doctor that still had his back turned to her, none the wiser to what transpired behind him. She slipped the slick black and metal baton from the dead guard's waist and then she took his pistol into her other hand. She crept up behind the doctor only for a blaring alarm, likely to alert everyone to her armed semi-escape, to ruin her element of surprise. Cameras were a bitch just for that reason and she cracked the baton over his skull with ease before she turned towards the door and quickly ran towards it.

She once again slammed the baton over another head, the head of the first guard to run into the lab, and then she shot the next two who tried to enter after him. She was quick to take the gun of the second guard and drop the baton. More guards rushed in and she took shot after shot, mowing down five more by dual wielding without a single one of them getting into the lab with her.

It sickened Natasha to no end that every single shot that killed a man made her feel _alive—_ feel overwhelmingly ecstatic. It was like a high. Adrenaline combined with murder, and her programming was enjoying every single second, hanging on every last moment of it like a lifeline.

As much as she hated being trapped within her own body, just this once, she was _glad_ to have her programming take over.

HYDRA deserved this.

Red Room deserved this.

Ross deserved this.

And Madame B, Stasia Balshovich, _she_ deserved this.

So Natasha relaxed, she let the red in, she let that hatred settle deeper and she curled her lips into a smile without fighting it as she took down another four men with bullets. It was when she tossed the guns with their empty clips to the floor and replaced them again with the two batons that a few of them squeezed into the lab. She stepped back, chuckling as they tried to circle around her like vultures. The fact that they weren't going for their guns made it clear that they obviously were still under orders to detain and not kill. That meant this would be a lot less fun.

Her programming's twisted joy for the fight was seeping into her own mind and she _let_ it happen. She let it because they _deserved_ all of this, for everything done to her, and certainly for everything that was done to Bruce.

Bruce...

That made her anger seer further and she was glad when they all came at her at once. She shoved her bare foot into the gut of one man to knock him back, the baton colliding over the head of the next one closest to her and hitting a third attacker with the second baton. She quickly slammed her elbow back into the fourth guy coming up behind her and avoided the fifth guy as he swung his own baton at her by ducking under it. She came back up, reaming the hilt of the baton into the chin of the man who almost took her head off and he dropped in an instant.

If he wasn't dead, that sickening crack certainly said that his jaw was broken or dislocated. The sixth guy actually managed to get his hand on her arm and she only just raised the baton in her free hand to block the blow of his own incoming attack. She kicked her foot up between his legs, cracked him over the head with the metallic baton, and then hit him again...and again...and again.

The red wasn't just clouding her vision, it was real, painting her arms and clothes a beautiful crimson. She just kept hitting him with the baton over and over, again and again, feeling more alive with each swing she took that was beyond overkill.

Somebody tried to stop her and she swung back, cracking the baton over his head and pouncing atop him like a predator who had just gotten its prey. And the sick cycle began all over again.

"Do _something_! _Anything_!" she heard one of those men yell out.

"I'm not going near her! She's insane!"

" _Fine_!"

She heard a noise, the strangest noise, and she only stopped hitting the second guy when she saw the strange metal tube, that had made some electronic _hissing_ noise, pressed against the skin of the back of her shoulder blade. It wasn't a weapon or anything of that sort, and she realized next that there were two little prongs in her skin and his thumb was on the plunger. He _injected_ her with something. With what she couldn't be sure, but she didn't feel woozy or tired and he looked hilariously frightened as she smiled pleasantly at him.

"That was a really bad idea," she informed him with a chuckle.

* * *

It wasn't long before the alarms blared everywhere, even in the room that Betty was currently locked into with Bruce, and she glanced over at him in concern as he looked up. He had been sitting quietly on the floor, feet curled beneath him, and despite the fact she knew he was a bundle of nerves and anger, he looked remarkably calm. Since he wasn't reacting to the alarms, Betty figured she should at least attempt to do the same, but they were loud and unnerving so she knew she had to be fidgeting at least a little.

Bruce had changed over the years and while he still looked like the same man she loved back then, he wasn't, not anymore. Whatever happened to him since joining the Avengers, it had been good for him, it had helped him on at least some level. She could see it in the way he could hide what he was feeling, the way he could control himself. Bruce had never had the sort of control before, he had never really had any control before, not when she knew him.

He had been quiet, funny and sad, all of which had been so incredibly charming; but back then she could _see_ those things about him, she could understand him. She was sure that he was still all of those things, probably even more than just those in particular, but while he was still Bruce Banner...he was a new version of him.

And if he could have looked at her even _half_ of the way he looked at Natasha Romanoff when she had been in here with them earlier, then Betty would have sworn that she was the luckiest woman in the world. He didn't just love Natasha; he was _in_ love with her, completely and hopelessly in love, and her father was using that against the two of them. Her father took something that should have been beautiful and turned it into something horrible, and Betty was honestly afraid that they wouldn't come out of this quite as in love as they entered the situation. She knew what too much danger combined with love could do to a relationship, she knew just how fragile something could be when everything seemed to be fighting against it.

What her father was doing would either make or break the two of them in the end.

The continued alarms finally seemed to garner a bit more attention from Bruce and she watched as he finally looked up and stared into the hallway. Then she saw the smallest smile was perched on his face and she felt the confusion bubble its way to the surface in the form of her voice, "Why are you smiling?"

"An alarm for that long probably means one of two things," Bruce told her and at her raised eyebrows he expanded on his answer, "either somebody has broken in or—or somebody is breaking out."

He sounded a bit more amused by the second half of that explanation and she understood what he was saying. Option one, the Avengers were here. Option two, Natasha was on the loose.

"Doctor Banner."

Betty looked up as Stasia appeared in the hallway and she glanced over at Bruce as he stared the woman down. She supposed they were about to find out what those alarms were truly entailing and she found herself looking between them, back and forth.

"You knew she had her programming active," Stasia accused, "you knew she could go on a rampage at any moment." Betty looked to Bruce in confusion but he wasn't answering her, he just shrugged rather indifferently to the accusation and it was both baffling and amazing at the same time. "She doesn't respond to the deactivation, did you know _that_?" the woman questioned next. Betty saw the flicker of amusement cross Bruce's face and Stasia actually looked at least somewhat annoyed by it even if her voice didn't air the same frustration when she gave him an order, "Stop her right now."

And Bruce actually snorted out a laugh before he finally voiced a rather sardonic response, "And just how do you suggest I do that, use a lullaby?" Betty almost couldn't believe it and she stared at him, stunned by his audacity. This was most definitely a new Bruce, or rather he was a new Bruce to her at the very least.

Stasia was clearly frustrated because the anger showed openly on her face, "If you don't agree to stop her then I will gas that room you're in and kill Elizabeth. You'll live, Doctor Banner, but she won't."

"Honestly I'm a little tired of your threats," Bruce informed her, "and I'm extremely tired of you trying to control me."

Betty watched him in fascination and with just a little bit of worry. She wasn't sure if maybe he was finally just unhinged, losing it after all that he watched them do to Natasha and all that they did to try and keep him in line, or maybe he really was just a lot more brazen than he used to be. She also couldn't blame him, not after all of this, not after seeing how dehumanizing they all were.

"Let me tell you how that would ultimately turn out if you decided to proceed with that threat," Bruce stated. Betty watched him stand up and move towards Stasia until he stood directly in front of her with only that sheet of safety glass standing between them. "You could gas the room, you could kill Betty, and you know what happens after that? I'll tell you. What happens after that is that you'll have _two_ monsters running rampant and we won't _ever_ stop," he assured her.

Betty stared with her mouth slightly agape.

New Bruce was a force to be reckoned with.

"You're bluffing," Stasia insisted with a chuckle, and Betty swore she heard a twinge of nervousness within that small laugh, "you wouldn't just let me kill her."

To be frank, Betty wasn't at all sure that she agreed with Stasia right now given that Bruce seemed to be in a rather daring and carefree mood. Still, she again couldn't blame him for it. She understood his need to defy the woman, hell...she sort of admired it.

"And you're not as in control of all of this as you believed you were," Bruce told her with a smirk. "Just in case you've forgotten, I'll remind you that Natasha is the only survivor of Red Room. She's survived this long without you in her life, so what precedent could you possibly still have for her? Natasha outgrew you. You just assumed that whatever methods you put into play when you had her would still work," Bruce explained to her with a knowing little smile, "and you were wrong."

"And you think Red Room were the only ones to mess with her mind, Doctor?" Stasia retorted, "you don't think that Nick Fury and SHIELD played with her mind too? She was loyal, she was proud of who she was, and then suddenly she's a traitor to her country? That sort of thing doesn't just happen on a whim."

Bruce shook his head and released a tiny little sigh of disappointment, "Actually, no. I don't think they did," he told her. "You're just in denial because she's not just one of your little toys that you can jerk around anymore and she's proving it, so you might want to worry a little more about what she's going to do to you rather than trying to convince yourself that you're still in control," he threatened, "because there are no strings on her."

"I am in control and you're going to regret this decision, Doctor Banner," Stasia assured him. "There was a time where she had no weakness, but that time is long gone," she told him next. " _You_ are her weakness. You, Barton, and even Stark and the other Avengers. Because of you, she'll _always_ have strings," she stated before she walked away.

Betty stood in awe as Bruce turned to look at her, but he couldn't quite look her in the eyes. She moved towards him slowly and placed her hand carefully on his upper arm before she spoke, "Bruce, it's okay. I get it."

Gunshots came from down the hallway and both of them whipped their heads in that general direction. The silence ensued between them even as several more gunshots came, and Betty counted seven of them in total now.

The question left her lips before she could stop it, "They need her, so—so they won't shoot her, right?"

"Right..." and Betty really wished that Bruce sounded more certain of that right now.

"Betty, Banner."

Again both of them turned their heads towards the opposite side of the room, to the safety glass with the second entrance, and Betty was surprised to see her father there.

"Romanoff is a loose cannon, she's out of control," her father informed them.

"So we've heard," Bruce answered, "your partner already threatened to kill Betty to try and get me to get Natasha under control."

Betty watched her father's brow wrinkle at the comment and if she was honest, he looked quite a bit concerned about everything going on. "What do you want?" she dared to ask.

"I'm offering to get you both out of there, I'm offering to help you both before Romanoff finds her way here," he answered, "I'm trying to do the right thing because she's insane and she's already killed a dozen men in the last few minutes, probably more..."

Bruce only shook his head, "You're not trying to help me."

"I'm trying to keep my daughter alive!" her father hissed out, "Romanoff will kill her! She'll try to kill you and unleash The Hulk. Is that what you want? You want Betty trapped with _two_ monsters?!"

Betty was about to comment with something unkind but she stopped, she stopped because Bruce chuckled, then slowly that chuckle grew until her former flame released a full on laugh that had him shaking at his shoulders. Now she was slightly concerned that maybe, just maybe, Bruce _was_ losing his mind.

Even her father looked slightly unnerved by the laughter. "Wh—why the hell are you laughing?!" he growled out, "this is serious Banner!" And though Bruce's full bout of laughter did end, he was in fact still snickering. Ross looked a little more weary this time, "...why are you laughing?"

"Because you think she'll try to kill me," Bruce informed him with a bemused shake of his head. "You really have no idea just how smart Natasha is, even her programming is brilliant. She knows she can't and she won't even bother to try. She's definitely not stupid enough to try and go through me to get to Betty."

Betty could only shrug at her father as she crossed her arms over her chest, "I'm not going with you, dad. Natasha was right. You call her and Bruce the monsters but...have you stopped and looked in the mirror lately? You hunted her down for days, you almost killed her, and then you kidnapped her and tortured her... You're working with people who don't even consider her a human being, so—so no, no...I don't want to go anywhere with you. I don't even want to look at you."

"Betty—"

"No."

"Betty, listen to me," he tried again, "I only have one thing they want, _one_ thing..." She narrowed her eyes slightly and he expanded on the comment, "If I lose that—if they have no reason to keep you alive, to keep me alive—"

Bruce asked the question before she could, "And whose fault would that be?"

"This is a mistake..."

Betty was getting used to hearing that and Bruce voiced _that_ opinion too, "Funny, your lady friend just said almost the exact same thing five minutes ago."

"I'm trying to protect my daughter!"

"This is _your_ mistake, dad, not mine or Bruce's," Betty informed him with a shake of her head, "because that woman wasn't lying, was she? _You_ made him into what he is. _You_ made Natasha what she is. Her life, that was supposed to be mine, wasn't it? Every terrible thing that happened to her, that's still happening to her; you're responsible! And you're protecting me, you did protect me...but dad, you did that at the cost of a _child's_ life! That woman said she was four...too young to even remember what life was supposed to be like and that's _your_ fault!"

A _thud_ against the glass behind them stopped her yelling and had herself and Bruce turning around yet again. Betty released a small gasp, inadvertently bumping into Bruce when she jumped back. Natasha stood there looking like an extra from the prom scene in Carrie, one corner of her lip curled into the tiniest smirk, and a guard's bloodied face slowly slid down the glass and left a red smear as it did so. Natasha's smile contradicted the emptiness that resided within her eyes and _now_ Betty understood what they were all talking about.

This wasn't the same woman who she saw before. This wasn't the woman who protected her. This was Red Room's weapon. The weapon that they hid within the woman and it had a mind of its own now.

Betty followed the body down, staring at the face of the guard that didn't even look like a face any longer.

And all it did was serve as a terrifying reminder that this, that what Natasha did, it could have been Betty herself.

Or maybe she would have been one of those twenty-seven dead girls. When she glanced back her father was already gone, though it wasn't him being gone that bothered her, but where he might be going.

Betty hadn't noticed that Bruce had edged his way to be somewhat between herself and Natasha, not until the redhead finally spoke, "Adorable. Are you two enjoying the nostalgia of your lost love being rekindled?"

She could actually see Bruce's shoulder's droop a little. He was clearly bothered by Natasha's words and Betty frowned, the defense immediately leaving her lips, "That's not what—"

"Don't bother," Bruce interrupted, "it's what she does when she can't kill you. She finds a different way to hurt you because she's not Natasha. She's a program inside of her head that only knows how to hurt and kill."

"And protect your pathetic ass," Natasha added on as she stepped up to the door and began prying the panel off the keypad, "but that's a brand new addition to my already dazzling personality."

Betty watched as Bruce's eyes narrowed while he tried to understand, and hell, while she tried to understand what Natasha meant.

But Bruce finally put words to his confusion, "What are you talking about?"

"I didn't know before because you weren't around," Natasha answered. Now Betty could understand the difference between Natasha and her programming. She could _hear_ the difference between the two. Natasha's air of nonchalance was just a carefully placed facade, something she couldn't see behind earlier, and her programming's was true indifference. The program didn't care, not even a little bit.

"It would seem that not being able to kill Stark or Barton isn't the only alteration to me," Natasha answered as she snapped off the metal plate and threw it aside. And now Natasha looked pissed off as she shifted her eyes towards them, "Because all she was thinking about when she put me back in her head was you. Because the only thing she wanted me for was to protect you. So that's what I'm doing. I'm doing what I'm programmed to do. I'm getting you out so you can go home. Wherever you decide that is this time."

Betty felt her breath catch in her throat and she saw Bruce's eyes, the stunned look shaping them as that revelation hit him completely, and the way he stared at the redhead with his lips parted to show how speechless he was.

It was several seconds of silence with Betty watching the redhead rewire the keypad with no real care in the world about the blood covering her or the dead body at her feet.

And then Natasha stopped, just stopped and dropped the gun in her other hand, resting that hand on the glass as her breathing came out unevenly.

"Natasha?" Bruce's concern was immediate and Betty watched him step right up to the glass and press his hand against it where Natasha's was resting. "Natasha, what is it?" he asked her quickly.

Betty frowned and watched as the redhead shook her head, took a deep breath, then moved both of her hands to the keypad and went back to work.

"Nat, get out, just go," Bruce told her in an instant, "go!"

"I can't," she answered without looking at him.

"But—"

"Bruce, she's not saying she won't," Betty pointed out as she interrupted him, "I think that she means...she means she really can't."

"Your girlfriend is right," Natasha stated. Betty forgot to breathe for a moment when the redhead looked at her, directly at her, and her eyes just looked empty and dead. "I'm not a person, remember? That's what Stark said once, that's what you said once. In fact, it seems to be a general consensus. And you know what I feel?" she questioned, "anger. Nothing but anger."

And then Betty saw Bruce watching Natasha, studying her more intently. "But you're not—you're not just the program, not this time..." he mumbled out with his eyes a little wider, "holy crap...you're both."

Betty watched that intense gaze shift off of herself and move to Bruce now before the redhead responded, and this time the emotion was there, the hostility mixed within a lifetime of torment and agony that had Betty's heart clenching, "Madame B thinks she owns me. _Nobody_ owns me. She took everything from me and I'm all she has left of everything she worked for. So now I'm returning the favor." Natasha took an unsteady breath, then she seemed to calm down, and she went back to working on the keypad. A few more shaky breaths and her face completely relaxed. Betty got it now, she understood what Bruce meant when Natasha's next words came out cool and calm, calculated and eerie, "I'm going to take everything that bitch has left and I'm going to tear it to pieces until there isn't a single thing left."

"Natasha...how did you do this? How did you—"

Betty saw the shaking of Natasha's fingertips, the way they were fumbling with the wires, then she noticed the sweat beading from her face.

"They deserve this."

Bruce looked uncertain for a moment before his eyes softened a little, "You're not fighting the programming. That's how you're both at the same time...you and the program. You aren't fighting."

Betty wasn't entirely sure she understood how that worked. The two seemed to have an understanding of one another that nobody else could ever have for each other though and that, Betty supposed, was what had drawn them together in the first place. Bruce might have had a monster that people could see but Natasha also had a monster inside her, one that nobody could see. They were entirely different from each other yet still the same.

"This is my fault, Natasha," Bruce tried next when the redhead was ignoring him. "I left," he added with a shake of his head, "I let you down."

It seemed to garner Natasha's attention at least because emerald colored eyes shifted to Bruce once more, eyes that looked remarkably tired, not at all like the ones from minutes ago. Natasha. Natasha and _not_ the program. Yet Natasha's fingers continued to work as the emptiness returned to her eyes and she looked back to the panel.

Betty could see the moment Bruce's worry over the redhead seaped in because now it wasn't just her fingers shaking, her entire body was. "What did they do to you?" she dared to ask Natasha, "you don't look okay."

"There was a syringe, I don't know what was in it," came the answer.

"A syringe?" Betty questioned, "what kind? What did it look like, Natasha?"

The redhead looked mildly perturbed by the questions as Betty found herself being given a rather weary and frustrated glance. "Does that really seem important at the moment?" was the only reply Betty received and frustration was clearly giving way to the younger woman as her fingers continued shaking and her eyes narrowed.

She saw Bruce's eyes flicker to the side of the hall, to Natasha, then quickly move back to the hall.

"Natasha!"

Natasha dropped the wires and turned just in time and Betty watched as Nikolao Constantin came seemingly out of nowhere. Betty cringed as the man slammed Natasha against the wall between them and herself and Bruce. She could actually see the way Bruce immediately got tense, his eyes searching for some means of escape that wasn't there.

While Betty didn't like the man at all just from brief run-ins, Natasha and Bruce appeared to like him much less and that was something she could only hazard a guess at. Betty watched the other woman drive her knee into Niko's gut to get him off of her but either the blow was lacking enough drive or that man was made of steel because the redhead was yanked forward and then slammed against the wall dividing them again.

She released her own shaky breath in worry before the redhead tried a different tactic. She slammed her foot up between Niko's legs and _that_ made him release her.

"Natasha, take him out and _run_ ," Bruce yelled to her and Betty watched as he hit the wall between them, "get out!"

Natasha glanced back at him and Betty watched the conflict in those green eyes. There was the smallest shake of her head and then she continued the fight, pulling out two metal batons and swinging them at Niko. It was almost like watching something out of some sort of action flick. He was using his arms, bare skin, to block the blows Natasha rained down on him. It was different now, putting the younger woman in brighter light, a better perspective of what she was now that Betty could see exactly what she was capable of.

Every attack was precise, every defense tactically thought out, every movement she made with grace and ease. This was what they made her? What Betty herself could have become? She couldn't even fathom it as a possibility. If this is what they made her, then what would that little girl have become without Red Room?

"Somethings wrong..." she heard Bruce mumble.

Betty glanced over at him and then back to Natasha's fight with Niko. "What do you mean? She's kicking his ass..." she mumbled.

"I know..." Bruce admitted, but she could see he still seemed uncertain, "but she shouldn't be. She's moving slower...she's shaking. They're evenly matched when she's at one hundred percent, I've seen it...and she's not right now."

Betty frowned slightly. _This_ wasn't a hundred percent? "I don't understand..." she admitted.

"He's like a lion playing with his food," Bruce finally explained quietly. Betty shifted her gaze back to the fight between the two and then back to Bruce as he rubbed desparagingly at his eyes. "She should have run..." he mumbled.

Even as Betty watched more closely she couldn't find any fault or sluggishness in Natasha's movements. It was the sweat beading rippled lines across a blood spattered face that proved it more and more to be true though. Something was definitely wrong. Betty jumped and released the tiniest gasp of breath when Natasha was slammed into that glass barrier between them, clearly struggling now to push the weight of Niko off as he held her against it. This time she was facing them and Bruce had a look of utter helplessness on his face.

Betty watched the redhead meet his eyes for a moment and it didn't seem to be the cold and calcuting look of what Bruce called her programming, she looked almost apologetic, though Betty couldn't fathom exactly what for. Then she slammed her elbow back into Niko's gut and Betty was certain her own face looked just as surprised as Niko when Natasha slipped downward, slid between the man's legs and yanked them out from under him as she did so.

Betty jumped when Niko landed face first into the glass and even Bruce looked surprised by the manuever. The redhead didn't just stop and run like Betty imagined Bruce was hoping, and she supposed that was why Natasha had given the apologetic look before. The woman seemed keen to not leave without him and Betty imagined that almost anyone else would have made a run for it.

No, Natasha didn't run. Betty watched her grip the back of Niko's neck and slam him face first into the glass between them multiple times. Betty lost count before Natasha dropped him down to the ground and then the redhead nudged him with her foot a few times for good measure.

"Natasha, go now!"

Betty glanced over at Bruce and then back to Natasha, watching the woman blatantly ignore him as she moved back to the keypad and immediately went back to work on it and Bruce immediately moved as closed to her as possible.

"Please," Bruce tried again, "you need to leave before they come up with something else."

"No."

"Dammit, Nat!" Bruce growled out as he hit the glass.

Betty was stunned when cold and angry green eyes turned on Bruce.

"You don't tell me what to do," Natasha snapped at him, "you don't own me."

There it was again and Betty knew it just by Bruce's haggard expression. It was Natasha mixed in with her programming again if Betty had to hazzard a guess.

"This isn't you, Natasha," Bruce tried again, but the redhead seemed keen on ignoring him as she worked. "It's not your programming either, Natasha, you need to get it out of your head," he told her, "you're losing control completely."

"I'm completely in control."

Bruce shook his head, "No you're not. You're level-headed, nearly impossible to anger, funny in a really...well, cynical sort of way." That made Betty smile a little. "But you're programming is cold, calculating and homicidal...and then she ups the ante with a severe arsenal of spiteful words," Bruce informed the redhead next. "But neither of you are in control and you're melding together Nat, it's changing you," he tried to tell her, "because neither of you would have snapped the way you just did. You can't look at me and tell me you're not losing yourself...because I know a little bit about that."

"Shut up."

"Don't lose yourself to this Natasha," Bruce told her, "don't become something that you can't come back from."

"Shut up," Natasha told him again.

"I don't need your programming, I don't need you to be anyone but _you_ Nat, because _you—_ not your programming, and not this combination of you both, but _you_ are the one who can open that door," Bruce assured her, "so if you aren't going to leave, then I need _you,_ the real you." Betty was stunned because the younger woman looked about ready to tell him to shut up again when Bruce suddenly hit the glass hard enough that Natasha looked up a little shell-shocked. Betty knew why when she saw the green in Bruce's eyes and he growled it out one more time, "Natasha, I need you!"

Betty watched the different expressions crossing the redheads face and she couldn't entirely be sure what Bruce's attempts might get them but Natasha's fingers were shaking on the panel again and the sweat was beading down her face in streams as she stared Bruce in the eye.

But without any of them noticing, something long, sleek and black came from the opposite side of Natasha and hit the redhead upside the head. Betty released a gasp at the sickening crack it made just before Natasha crumpled to the floor. Stasia stood there with stone-faced with that metal baton in hand.

"Thanks for being so distracting to her," Stasia told him before the smallest smile played on the older woman's lips.

Betty had never before seen the anger on Bruce's face that she saw now and it caused her to take quite a few steps back just on instinct. He looked ready to lose his mind.

"I swear when I get out of here I'm going to kill you..." she heard Bruce growl out in a low voice.

The more worrisome part was that as Stasia had more guards take Natasha away, Betty didn't doubt his threat, not even for a minute and he didn't leave it at that even when she was walking away.

"It won't be The Hulk, it won't be Natasha!" he yelled after her, " _I'm_ going to kill you!"

* * *

 **So the Betty PoV was interesting to write. Hope you guys enjoyed it as well, whoever might have actually returned to read after that rather long hiatus lol. We're going to go back to our usual perspectives in the next chapter but if you want another Betty one in the near future, feel free to say so.**

 **Also, be sure check out Black Victor Cachat's new community for Bruce/Natasha :) sure to be updated with new stories as they're found or written!**

 **Think Bruce is right? Have both Natasha and her programming melded into something that neither one can completely control? Hmm.**


	11. Chapter 11

Wow, I didn't expect such a large turn out after such a long wait but can I just say...you guys are all the absolute best. It was completely amazing to see how many of you were willing to return with me and I'm so grateful! I truly hope this continues to be a story that all of you love because I really do love writing it!

 **Chapter 10** :

" _And in one little moment it all implodes  
but this isn't everything you are."_

The first thing she noted was that she was _cold_ , freezing actually.

She also couldn't move.

Natasha just barely shifted her hands the tiniest bit before she realized they weren't budging. Neither were her feet. When she finally gave in and opened her eyes she found herself staring into the big green eyes of a child. She was covered in ash, scrawny, with pale skin and ringlets of soot covered red hair. Natasha shifted her eyes to the black-singed teddy bear held tightly in the girl's arms.

There was absolute silence as they stared at one another and seconds flew by before Natasha heard noise. A snapping noise to be exact. Then she blinked and that little girl was gone, replaced by a hand with fingers snapping in her face.

"Nothing's working. The fever isn't going down, you'll need Dr. Ross," she heard a voice say, "whatever was in this syringe isn't anything of mine. It has to be hers."

"I'll take care of getting her in here then," and that voice Natasha recognized as Madame B.

And everything just faded back to darkness again.

* * *

"Elizabeth."

Betty glanced up from where she and Bruce were once again sitting in silence. She found herself looking at Stasia through the glass and the woman was holding up some metallic tube.

"What is this?"

Betty glanced at Bruce with some confusion and he looked just as befuddled by the question, so she looked back to the woman behind the glass.

"It was in your lab," Stasia replied, "and whatever contents were inside it are now inside of Natasha. Let's just say the effects on her aren't exactly desirable."

If Betty was honest with herself, she didn't have a damn clue what was inside of that tube but she didn't like the way Stasia made it sound. "What do you mean by that?" she dared to ask, "what's wrong with her?"

Stasia's eyes narrowed and Betty could feel the woman studying her. Finally after a moment she answered, "Fever, nausea, and I believe hallucinations."

"Well...if it weren't for the fever I'd probably blame the fact you cracked her over the head with a metal stick earlier," Betty heard Bruce mutter out. He was right though. The second two could have been explained by that but certainly not the fever.

Stasia ignored his comment. "Well, Elizabeth?" she questioned.

"You want me to take a look at her?"

"I am asking nicely," Stasia reminded her.

Betty moved to step forward when she felt Bruce's hand hesitantly grasp her arm. She glanced back to look at him when he spoke, "You don't have to do this, Betty."

Considering that earlier the redhead had pushed her out of the way and taken the brunt of a hit from Bruce's other half for her, Betty couldn't find it in her to agree with him, not to mention the small fact that her father was one of the main causes of all of this. "Actually...I kind of think I do," she told him. She moved towards the door and glanced over at Stasia, "How can you be sure she's hallucinating?"

"Because a little while ago she was talking to a man who's been dead for twenty years."

Betty supposed that was a good enough way to be sure. She felt Bruce's eyes on them; watchful, cautious and on high alert, but he stayed back as the door opened just enough for Betty to step out, then they were quickly closed again.

As uncomfortable as it was, Betty ignored the older woman's hand on her arm as she was led down the hall.

Except they moved past all of the labs. "Why isn't she in my lab or medical?" she found herself asking.

"That mistake won't be made twice," Stasia informed her.

She didn't like the sound of that, not in the slightest, but after two right turns and then a left, Betty was walked through the door to a sight that wasn't a relief to see. The redhead sat in a chair, sleek metal latches arched over each wrist and her ankles. Natasha's head was hanging down in what Betty assumed was unconsciousness.

Natasha was also once again mostly clean of all the blood that Betty had seen on her earlier so at least that made the redhead a lot less of a terrifying sight than the Bloody Mary version. The cut and bruising on her temple was an ugly mar on the pale complexion though and she found herself wincing just at remembering the sound of that baton cracking over her head.

"Why do all of this?" Betty asked the woman, "why her? Obviously she's not going to do what you want willingly...so—so there has to be better way then—then this."

"Doctor Banner said it himself earlier," Stasia told her, "Natasha is the only survivor."

"You told her that you had your reasons for 'wanting' things for her," Betty reminded the woman. She could see that it seemed to irk Stasia at least slightly. "And the way that you talked about her...about what you wanted for her," Betty added quietly, "you talked about her dancing with pride, you talked about her getting married and having kids—the types of things _a mother_ would say." And by the way Stasia's eyes narrowed just slightly, Betty had a feeling she barked up the right tree. "You're her mother. How could you have done all of this to her?" she bit the question out.

Stasia ignored the comment, "Do what I brought you in here to do."

Maybe it was Bruce's earlier boldness but Betty found herself pushing the subject, "Don't you care about her even a little?" She stepped over to Natasha and crouched down, tilting her chin up to take a better look at the redhead, but she had to be out cold or she surely would have reacted to this news in some way or form. Nobody was _that_ good. "Or do you just have no maternal bone in your body whatsoever?" Betty questioned next, "because this—no one in their right mind could do this to their own child."

Stasia let out the smallest and coldest laugh that Betty ever heard before shaking her head. "I have and always will do what's best for her, now fix her or I'll have the next torture session planned with your name on it," came the threat.

"Where's the syringe that she was injected with?" Betty asked. To be frank, she just wasn't sure she could listen to that woman justify her lack of motherly love. Betty just barely caught the metallic tube that Stasia threw her way and she studied it before untwisting the end. She took a sniff but it held no odor and without running days worth of tests on whatever remnants might still be left inside, there was no telltale way of knowing what it might be.

"Let your guard here know whatever you'll be needing," Stasia told her.

Betty frowned as she turned back to the woman, "Is having her locked this tight to a chair necessary? Look at her...she's feverish, injured—"

"And even more deadly. Ever seen a wounded dog backed into a corner?" Stasia questioned with a chuckle as she left the room, "Natasha is much, much worse."

Betty moved to the counter in the room and pulled a washcloth off, wetting it in the sink before bringing it back over to Natasha. She placed it over the far too hot forehead of the redhead. Betty barely maintained the gasp of surprise when those green eyes slid open and looked at her with complete alertness within them. Betty shifted her own eyes to the guard who apparently was too interested in staring out the door than watching them.

"You—you were awake," Betty whispered, "the whole time?"

"Yes."

She wasn't sure why but the emotionless answer left Betty with a gut-wrenching feeling. Still, the redhead didn't seem interested in talking about it and Betty figured it was best not to broach the subject with a woman who had just slaughtered a good dozen men only a little over an hour ago. That really wasn't someone you wanted to piss off if you could help it. She gave the smallest nod to her in response, "The hallucinations; real or did you just pretend to have those?"

"Real," Natasha answered.

"What else?"

Natasha seemed to be studying her now, almost as though she were trying to decide if she was still worth trusting, and Betty supposed she couldn't really blame her. "The fever, obviously... and I'm assuming that's the reason for the hallucinations," she finally stated.

"Probably..." Betty agreed.

"I also feel like I'm about to vomit my insides out," Natasha informed her nonchalantly.

"Pleasant," Betty replied with an uncomfortable chuckle. It got the smallest upturn of the lips from Natasha so Betty considered that to be a feat. "Look...she thinks I know what was in this thing," she whispered next.

"But you don't," Natasha finished for her.

Betty shook her head. "So if I don't know...and they don't know..." she tacked on next.

"Then who does?" Natasha asked the question on Betty's own mind.

"Is he looking at us?"

Natasha's eyes looked a little uncertain but she shook her head, "No."

"That's good..." Betty mumbled. She stood up, moved towards the guy and shoved him face first into the wall.

He crumbled like a sack of potatoes and Betty stood with her eyes wide and hands up almost defensively. She hadn't expected to knock him out and she took a few quick breaths, "Wow...I—I really whammied that guy."

When Betty turned back to look at Natasha she could see the surprise clear as day in the younger woman's face. "Yeah you uh...you really put some force into that," Natasha told her in a voice that sounded almost impressed.

"You know who has the keys to these things?" Betty questioned as she moved quickly to Natasha's side again, tapping her fingers on the metal latches.

Natasha chuckled, "I'll give you one guess."

"Stasia..."

The redhead nodded. "If busting me out of here was your plan...you really should have brought that up first," she pointed out. "What do you think your chances are of getting to Bruce and getting him out?" and she watched Natasha wiggle her hands a little, "because without a key you're going to need a little force to get these off."

Betty frowned slightly but nodded her head before she stood up and ran towards the door.

"Betty."

She turned her head to look back at Natasha.

"You might want to take his weapons."

At least one of them was thinking clearly and that was ironic given that the one doing so was hallucinating. "Right...good plan," Betty agreed. She leaned forward and took his baton and gun before she ran out of the room.

* * *

Betty was probably only gone for a few seconds when Natasha watched the little girl step in front of her once again. She wasn't real. Natasha _knew_ she wasn't real because she was staring at a much younger version herself. It was hard to believe that once upon a time she had looked as innocent and helpless as that. Sometimes it was hard to remember that innocence like that even existed.

It was no wonder she was seeing her.

Strapped down in a chair, being toyed with all over again, manipulated, tortured, imprisoned...

Natasha felt as helpless as she did then even if she would never admit it out loud.

She wished that kid would just disappear again, that she would stop staring at her with that helpless face. When she finally fade from existence it was only because she heard the safety mechanism click off on a gun. The hallucination gave way to what she assumed was reality because Ross was standing there and he looked murderous.

"About damn time you checked back in, Romanoff," Ross grumbled out.

She followed him with her eyes as he paced back and forth in front of her and he looked like he was just a few fries short of a happy meal. Taunting him was probably a terrible idea but she didn't realize just how far off the deep end he was until _after_ she did it, "Well, I take it you like your women better when they can't fight back, eh General? Funny, you had struck me more as the submissive type."

"You think you're funny?" Ross questioned. When he actually turned and looked at her she recognized her mistake. His eyes were wild. Stasia made that comment about caged dogs earlier and that was exactly the look she saw in Ross right now. She didn't react when he gripped her by the hair and yanked her forward further than was comfortably possible when latched down to the chair. "You know the irony of all of this, Romanoff?" he asked next with a chuckle that sounded almost a little maniacal coming from him.

"I'm sure you're about to enlighten me," she answered with an air of indifference.

He shook his head as he released another little huff of a laugh and Natasha found herself becoming less and less of a fan of the way this was going. "The reason I always wanted Banner away from my daughter _before_ he was a monster was because he was just so damn pathetic," he told her. Natasha narrowed her eyes slightly as she gave the man a dirty look. "It's adorable that you find that offensive on his behalf," he commented with a smirk. "I wanted somebody who had the balls to stand up for themselves, for Betty. Not some pushover scientist," he informed her. Natasha didn't react still when he leaned forward and got right in her face and she had half a mind to headbutt him. "And yet now...look at him now..." Ross mentioned, "the audacity to tell that bitch she wasn't in control? Oh that was priceless...ballsy even."

She hadn't even known that Bruce had done that but she gave him props. "Is there some point to your sudden enlightenment into Bruce's character or do you just enjoy hearing yourself talk?" she questioned.

Ross finally released his grip on her hair and she followed him with her eyes until she couldn't any longer because he had moved behind her. "The irony is that is that he couldn't learn how to be a man with a decent woman like my daughter. It took a lying, conniving, murdering—"

"That list could go on forever," Natasha cut him off with a roll of her eyes, "now I feel like you're trying to offend me on purpose." She felt the barrel of the gun dig into the back of her head and she bit the inside of her cheek to keep herself from saying something that might actually make him shoot her.

"You've ruined everything and now the only way I can make sure Betty isn't killed is to make sure you aren't an option for them anymore."

That one she didn't have a witty comment for. She scrunched her nose up slightly before she understood what he was doing here and why he was actually about to go quite so trigger-happy. "You think that if I'm dead then they'll need Betty for the lullaby," she stated aloud.

"Unlike you I don't take murder lightly."

"You're protecting your daughter the only way you know how," Natasha commented as she gave the barest of shrugs. At least now he seemed more clear-headed and less unhinged. Though to be frank, she wasn't sure if it was worse to be killed by a man of was on the verge of insanity or one who was completely in his right mind.

Ross didn't disagree, "I didn't expect you to be quite so understanding."

"I'm not saying the world wouldn't be a better place without me in it," Natasha told him, "but how well do you think this will end for your daughter when Stasia finds out that you killed hers?"

She could actually feel him freeze up at her comment. "You know about that?" he questioned.

"I had my suspicions but Betty got the actual answer for me," Natasha answered.

"Your crazy mother might kill me for this Romanoff but she's a smart woman, she'll know she needs Betty," Ross informed her.

Natasha gave the smallest of nods. "Do what you have to do, clearly I can't stop you," she pointed out, "but for Betty's sake I really hope that you're not wrong, General."

"You and me both, Romanoff, but this is my only chance."

* * *

Two rights and a left. That meant a right and two lefts to get back to where she had started in Bruce's cage of a room. Betty moved for it as quietly possible, checking around the corners for anyone who might be in her path. Until now she didn't know that she even had a stealthy bone in her body but not a single person was in the halls as she crept along and she had to consider her timing good. When she finally got to her destination one of the guards was just pushing something through the barely cracked open door to Bruce's room and she considered that a miracle in and of itself. She hadn't really thought through her plan on how she might get that door open when Natasha, a brilliant and trained spy, couldn't.

It also meant she had to be quick.

Betty ran as fast as possible, slammed the gun over the man's head and only just stopped the door from closing by shoving the baton between it.

Fortunately even in his surprise Bruce came running over and together they pulled the door back open enough for him to squeeze out without him having to turn green.

"Wow...you knocked that guy out."

"Yeah...I got over most of the surprise after the first guy," Betty informed him.

"Where is she?" he questioned quickly.

"This way."

* * *

Bruce followed behind Betty and he had to say, that woman ran _fast_. She was someone on a mission and he was grateful for that. Unfortunately what he didn't expect was stepping into a room with her and seeing what he saw. There was Natasha in a rather familiar predicament that left a bad taste in his mouth, even if it wasn't _that_ chair, but there was also Ross behind her with the gun cocked and ready to fire.

"You and me both, Romanoff, but this is my only chance."

"Dad, no!"

Ross hissed out his words like they might just make all of this alright, "If she's alive, Betty, then both of us are dead."

"Ross, don't do this," Bruce found that his voice came out practically begging, yet Natasha just stared at him from where she was sitting and he wasn't entirely sure she was there with them. Her eyes looked a little glazed over.

"Dad, look at her..." Betty told her father, "look at her! Look at everything that you and that woman put her through! Haven't you done enough?"

"You don't understand," Ross told them, or maybe he was just talking to Betty really, Bruce couldn't be sure.

But Bruce still had his eyes on Natasha's and finally she seemed a little more aware as she studied him. "Loathed as I am to say this, nothing needs to happen to you Ross," Bruce assured the man and at least his next comment was a lot more heartfelt, "and I definitely won't let anyone kill Betty." He put his hands up in the air slightly, showing Ross that he had no intentions of being harmful as he moved further into the room. Regardless of putting up a rouse with Stasia earlier, he really wouldn't just let Betty die. "Ross...please, you don't need to kill her, the Avengers will keep _both_ of you safe," and this time Bruce was pretty sure that actually could be considered begging.

"With her dead then Betty's safety is guaranteed. They'll need her," Ross informed them, "they'll need a second option."

And Bruce thought the man sounded almost desperate and desperate men weren't ones you could really negotiate with.

"I said earlier I only had one thing keeping us alive," Ross stated, "but I didn't know."

"Didn't know what?" Bruce dared to ask, trying to slowly get closer without setting him off or getting Natasha shot. He could see her fierce gaze following him and finally he could actually see Natasha in them, not the glaze of whatever world she had been lost in just moments ago. Even more than that though...it _was_ Natasha, not her programming, and not whatever in between that had been created of her two personalities earlier. It was Natasha. He didn't know how, he just _knew_.

"It's inside _her_...my ace up the sleeve is now in her," Ross growled out, " _stop_ moving!"

Bruce froze in an instant and he saw the look in Natasha's eyes.

He had seen it before in India.

Acceptance.

"The only thing I had left that was keeping us alive and _again_ she's the reason it all falls apart," Ross mumbled and Bruce could tell the man was completely unhinged now. "She murders people, she's a spy, a liar...and yet my daughter, _my own daughter_ , chooses her over me," and the man sounded like he actually found that funny because he huffed out a laugh. "Well...not now, because I'm ending this."

"Ross... wait—"

"Bruce..."

Bruce shifted his eyes back to Natasha when she caught off his next plea.

"Maybe this is better," she told him and it left an empty pit inside him because he knew why she was saying it. "I lost control, Bruce...this _is_ better," Natasha tried to assure him.

"No—no, it's not," he assured her, "and I happen to know a few things about losing control."

"Give it a rest," Ross moaned out with a roll of his eyes. Bruce grimaced when the man shoved the barrel of the gun into the back of Natasha's head roughly and Bruce wisely shut his mouth regardless of not wanting to.

But Natasha didn't. She seemed to have something she needed to get out, clearly believing that these were her last moments to do so. She had an entirely different look in her eyes now but it was a look he had also seen in India once before. One he had also seen in Sokovia. "I adore you..." she whispered the words and they tugged at him all over again, "and I really wish I could have offered more."

And this just—this couldn't be where it ended. Not when they were _this_ close.

Bruce saw Ross' finger go to pull the trigger and he ran forward.

The gunshot sounded nonetheless and he felt his heart beating faster, faster, faster.

But Natasha was staring at him wide-eyed and instead Ross fell, blood oozing in a steady flow from the smallest hole from the man's chest. He saw Natasha's eyes finally blink, then shift towards the side of the room, and Bruce's eyes followed suite.

He had never seen it.

Bruce had never seen Betty moving opposite of him because he'd been too focused on Natasha and Ross. Too focused on losing Natasha again.

And Betty was standing there, gun shaking in her hands, eyes wide in fear and disbelief.

Bruce found himself torn in that moment because he wanted to get Natasha out of the chair but he really should get that gun out of Betty's shaking hands and check on her. His brain won out over his heart and he moved towards Betty, easing the gun from her trembling clutches.

"Just—just get her out of that chair..." Betty told him.

Bruce sucked in a breath before he nodded and moved back towards Natasha. Short of hulking out he was pretty sure he wasn't going to be ripping off those metal latches over her hands, but fortunately he came up with a plan B. "Betty..." he called out. She didn't answer and he glanced over at her. She was just staring at Ross' body and he couldn't exactly blame her. "Betty?" he tried again.

This time she looked over at him.

"I could use that baton..." he told her quietly.

"Right..." came the wary answer and she moved towards him and handed it over.

"Can you watch the door?" he asked with uncertainty, taking the baton and holding the gun back out to her. She was staring at him almost as though she might be sick, yet she took the gun anyways and moved silently towards the door.

"Not going green?" Natasha finally seemed to have found her voice again and he chuckled sadly before she gave the smallest of smiles, "planning to beat me out of the chair?"

"Not exactly," Bruce told her as he placed his hand on the side of her face in relief. If she was managing some sort of humor than at least that meant she was herself. It also _really_ wasn't the time to dwell and get all sentimental and he quickly pulled his hand back and smacked the arm of the chair with the baton. He watched the surprise on Natasha's face when the metal latch over her one hand released. "Right amount of force in the right place...releases the mechanism that holds the latch down..." he mumbled out.

Her eyebrow quirked up slightly and she let out a breathy little laugh when he released the latch on her other hand the same way. "How very dorky of you..." she informed him as he did the same to the ones on her feet.

"There's a _lot_ of guards coming this way..." came Betty's words, still filled with that remorse and sadness, but also a wariness of the current _new_ situation.

Bruce frowned but Natasha stood up the moment he got both her feet loose. She instantly went straight into mission mode and he watched her move right to Betty, take the gun from her hand and then move the brunette behind her in an almost protective manner. He couldn't blame her. Betty had just killed her own father to save Natasha's life and he knew Natasha; she would always feel like she owed Betty everything after that. Hell, he felt the exact same way, which was a good change of pace given his previous questioning to himself of whose side she was on.

"Natasha?" he questioned. She glanced back at him just briefly and he raised the question, "Are you okay to do this?"

"I'm seeing things that aren't there, your ex girlfriend just saved my life, and it turns out that the crazy bitch who did all of this to me is my mother," Natasha told him nonchalantly and then she cocked the gun and aimed it towards the doorway to the hall, "I'm great."

Bruce furrowed his brow at her comment. "Right...well..." and he paused in an instant, "wait, what?"

"He has a gun on him, grab it," Natasha ordered him.

Bruce glanced down at Ross' body and Betty seemed to be doing her best to look anywhere but at her father. He picked up the gun and watched as Natasha pulled Betty with her to one side of the door, then she motioned him to the opposite side. This wasn't something he ever thought he would do but he moved into place on the other side of the door and cocked his own gun. He listened to the footsteps running towards them and Natasha stood just opposite of him in wait. When she glanced at him he couldn't help but mouth the question, " _your mother?_ "

She inclined her head slightly and gave the barest of shrugs. Apparently she was going to shove that into that little box inside her head and deal with it later and he _really_ wished he knew how she did that sometimes.

It also wasn't at all important at this moment in time.

He supposed now was the time to use some of the moves she had taught him. When two men entered at the same time he and Natasha both grabbed the one closest. He used her infamous leg hook around his target's leg and hooked his arm around the man's neck to take him to the ground. She was faster than him though. Natasha already had a bullet through the head of the man she took down and then she put one through the head of the man who came through the door next.

And when Bruce found himself hesitating to pull the trigger, Natasha instead put the bullet through the head of the one he had knocked down before he had a chance to get over the discomforting idea of needing to do it himself. She didn't even look mad or upset, no, Bruce knew she did it on purpose when he looked up and met her eyes. She was trying to keep his hands clean and he wished she wouldn't take burdens like that on herself.

When no one else came through the door and he and Natasha locked eyes with equal confusion. He watched as she slowly poked her head out the door and glanced in both directions. A moment later she moved back into the room and looked back at Betty. "How many did you see?" she questioned.

"Six, maybe seven."

The redhead took a deep breath and then released it before she spoke again, "I guess they're finally getting smarter. Betty, do you know the way out?"

"Y-yeah..."

Bruce watched as Natasha picked up a gun off of another of the men and she handed it back to Betty before stuffing the other two guns into the waistband of the sweatpants she was wearing. "I know you're freaking out," Natasha told her, "I owe you...but I can't repay that debt until we get out of here."

Betty took the gun, shifted her gaze over to her father, then to Bruce himself and then finally back to Natasha. "You don't..." she answered quietly, "we only have a couple of halls to get out, we just need to make a right out of this room."

Bruce narrowed his eyes slightly when Natasha moved to step out of the room and then she froze in place. "Natasha?" he questioned.

"There's—there's nobody there, right?"

He glanced at the spot she was staring and then back to Natasha. "No—no nobody's there, Nat..." he assured her.

Her usually fierce gaze met his eyes and instead they looked hesitant, weary and exhausted. "It uh...it might be best if I don't go first..." she suggested, "shooting walls probably won't help us."

Bruce didn't know what she was seeing but he knew it took a lot for Natasha to admit she was doubting her abilities and that left him with an unsettling feeling in the pit of his stomach. "Right..." he mumbled before he stepped out the door first and went to the right.

* * *

"The entire game just changed," Stasia informed Niko as she watched the security feed, "Banner's free and we don't exactly have the methods to make the same play we did last time to get his and the Hulk's cooperation."

"Which plan are we switching to now, Madame?" came Niko's question and he almost sounded like he found it amusing, "because I think that we have already done A, B, C and all the way down to F."

She chuckled, "Well, from what I've seen there's really only one good way to fight a Hulk."

"I said from the beginning that we never needed Banner or his beast. Bright side, at least our rotund general will no longer be so bothersome."

"Don't get cocky, Nikolao," Stasia ordered the man, shaking her head a releasing a sigh, "we wanted Banner because they've already done half of the work for us. I'm really not interested in starting from scratch here but...desperate measures and all that."

"I'll take care of it."

Stasia watched him as he moved to leave the room and she narrowed her eyes before she spoke, "Nikolao."

He turned to look back at her but he clearly caught the warning tone in her voice already, "Yes, Madame?"

"I don't care about Banner or Elizabeth at this point, with this plan we have no use for either one," she informed him, "but if you kill Natalia then I promise that I will rip your heart out myself, do you understand that?"

"Understood, Madame."

She had to admit that she never expected Betty to kill her own father. It really was too bad. Perhaps Betty would have had the stones to make it through the program if things had been different. "And Nikolao?" she tacked on next, "make sure the men know that the Ross girl is no longer off limits."

Stasia also had to give Ross his due. That mad had come far too close to making his daughter an actual necessity as a back up plan.

* * *

 **I hope you all enjoyed Badass Betty. One guy we all wanted dead finally down, though probably not the way any of you thought. I actually made myself feel a little bad for him in the end there before I had him iced. Huh...fancy that.**

 **Things only get crazier from here.**


	12. Chapter 12

Big thanks to **Mushy Snugglybits** for updating this for me. I can't get the site open and fortunately her and I swapped e-mails ages ago. **Happy New Year** , everyone! Hope your holidays were absolutely fantastic.

 **Chapter 11** :

" _Every river, I failed to cross  
Every door I've ever tried was locked  
Every gun I've ever held went off  
and so I just got lost."_

Natasha despised the fact that she needed to keep a grasp on Bruce's arm just to anchor herself with reality. To be frank, she was afraid that if she let go that she might just completely lose sight of what was real and what wasn't, specifically Bruce himself. And after all, it was logical to let him lead the way when he was sort of 'bulletproof' in a sense. She just wasn't all that thrilled to be sandwiched between him and Betty. There weren't all that many people she trusted to watch her back and right now she was trusting a woman to do it whom she had only known for a short amount of time, though Betty had done something for her that most people would have never done.

That was deserving of at least some level of trust.

Not knowing what was real or not was dangerous enough all on its own and Natasha followed Bruce, keeping an eye on their backsides as they maneuvered regardless of Betty already doing so. Bruce moved quickly and she furrowed her brow when he quite literally walked through a man who had no face. It was clearly another hallucination and she did her best to ignore it as she kept behind Bruce. She was going to have to admit to him that she was compromised, that she couldn't trust anything she was seeing, "Bruce."

He paused and turned to her in an instant, "Yeah?"

"I'm going to need you to tell me when there's a threat," Natasha told him. His eyes took on an uncertain expression and she inclined her head slightly, "Right now there's a man with no face standing between us."

"Anything else?" he dared to ask.

It was a damned good question. "Aside from feeling like I might vomit my insides to the outside at any given moment," she answered as she followed behind him again and vehemently ignored the faceless man, "not really."

"Oh... is that all?" and Natasha was pretty certain that was sarcasm.

Bruce stopped again in an instant and she ran straight into his back, "Jeez, Bruce."

"He's real!" came his instant response.

She didn't hesitate to raise the stolen gun and put a bullet straight through the man's head and she gripped Bruce's arm in her free hand. "Go, tell me when to shoot and don't hesitate," she ordered.

Bruce did as she said and moved onward with her hand attached to his arm and as much as Natasha hated it, she was forced to keep that grip as an anchor. The last thing she wanted to do was put a bullet in the scientist and make him go green, she could only handle one problem at a time.

"Shoot."

And she did. The man dropped to the ground and she didn't wait for him to tell her to shoot the next guy who came around the corner, or the next, or the next.

"Remind me to never underestimate you, even when you're drugged," he breathed out before moving forward.

"Sure," she agreed.

She raised the gun again only for Bruce's free hand to rest on her hand and lower it. "No one's there..." he assured her quietly. Natasha blew out a frustrated breath at that and squinted her eyes. As far as she could tell there was an entire hit squad standing there. "Trust me," he added. She supposed she would have to and she moved with him as he stepped through the hallucinations. Betty was so silent during the entire thing that Natasha had to glance back just to be sure that the brunette was still there. She was, though she still looked haunted over what happened with Ross. If there was a way to change what had occurred then Natasha would have done it in an instant. She watched as Betty's eyes met her own for a moment before the other woman looked away.

She couldn't blame her for that.

They didn't run into any further _real_ interruptions when they finally made it to the exit and she squinted as the sunlight washed over her face. Everything in the facility had been dim, dank and drab, though she supposed that whatever the drug was wasn't helping matters as the light actually hurt her eyes.

All she could see for miles in any direction around the facility was tree after tree. "Well... this looks promising..." she murmured.

"There's a main road ten miles north," Betty informed them, "a few narrow dirt roads leading to it but they keep men all over that."

Not the greatest answer but it was better than nothing.

"So...stick to the trees then," Bruce mumbled as he slowly edged into the jungle and more quietly she heard his next words that made her smile just the slightest bit, "because that seems safe this time of year..."

He certainly wasn't wrong, if she had to hazard a guess just by the storm clouds above and the darkness looming with it that they were sitting right in the midst of monsoon season. That wasn't a time of year where you wanted to roam the wild. Still, given her condition it was probably better than the alternative of dealing with a small army on the main road so Natasha followed closely behind Bruce, her free hand still gripping his arm as they moved with Betty just behind her. She was going to take a wild guess and assume that the giant fire breathing dragon just ahead was most certainly _not_ real. Even so she must have faltered because Bruce had an arm around her waist before she could actually comprehend him doing so.

"Natasha, you with me?" and his voice broke through enough that she focused. She realized in that moment that she was halfway to falling to the ground and likely would already be on it already if Bruce weren't holding her up. Natasha didn't even realize how shallow her breathing had become until he lowered her to sit just within the treeline. He seemed to catch on, "Side effect of the drug you think?" She nodded her head. "Alright... take a minute, catch your breath," he offered up with clear worry in his tone, "nobody's come out after us yet." Catching her breath wasn't as easy as he made it sound and she took in some deep breaths to try and fill her lungs with air. She jerked away when Bruce sat down behind her and only paused when his words made sense, "You're barely able to catch your breath...so let me help."

Natasha locked eyes with him for a moment and the warmth within his brown eyes was enough for her to give in. If she couldn't breathe then she couldn't escape and she knew that if she couldn't, then he absolutely wouldn't. The look in his eyes alone told her he wouldn't leave her behind. Finally she nodded her agreement and managed not to jerk away when he pulled her back to rest against his chest.

"Alright...just relax," he offered up. Given that he was as stiff as a board it was a rather hilarious suggestion but she did her best to acquiesce to his request. "I need you to breathe with me, alright? Mimic my breathing..." Bruce told her next, "breathe in...breathe out..." and she thought she recognized what he was doing, though she couldn't place how or why.

For the first moment it was Betty standing before her, keeping an eye out for anyone that might have exited the building to come after them. And then suddenly she was staring into the face of someone familiar. A man with dark hair, dark eyes, holding the hand of the same little girl from earlier. She was covered in soot and ash, holding that charred and singed teddy bear, and a burning house lay just behind them. Instead of mimicking his breathing, panic spread throughout her body and instead all she released were painful gasps.

"Natasha, whatever you're seeing, it's not real," came Bruce's voice.

But it _was_ real, so very, very real. "Ivan..."

"Natasha, listen to me. Nobody is there, do you hear me?"

"The fire...it's everywhere..." The flames burned higher and brighter, engulfing everything.

"Breathe, Natasha. _Breathe_."

She did. In, then out, in, then out. Slowly the burning house disappeared, then Ivan, and then finally the child version of herself. _In...then out..._

Bruce's grasp on her was tight but he seemed to know that she was back on track, that the hallucination was over, and that she could finally breathe again.

"Are you alright?" Betty asked with a softer voice than Natasha thought was necessary coming from _any_ person, that she only heard from two other people in her entire life. Betty reminded her a lot of Pepper and Laura.

"Fine. We should move." Natasha refused to acknowledge the fact that she was ridiculously vulnerable in their presence so she pulled herself back up to her feet and gripped Bruce's arm again as he stood up beside her.

He looked ridiculously worried and she caught his eyes as they seemed to lock onto her overall appearance. She knew she looked like something the cat dragged in, probably worse even, but he affirmed it, "You look like crap."

Natasha snorted out a rather undignified and unladylike laugh. "Good thing we only have ten miles to go then," she offered up.

That worried look never left his eyes but he seemed to accept her words for what they were; a lighthearted way of telling him they needed to get moving. "Right..." he agreed warily before moving through the jungle again.

Natasha kept up without much effort though she knew Bruce was moving at a slower pace regardless. He knew for a fact that she wasn't remotely close to being alright despite the rather stellar job she was doing at trying to prove otherwise. She was covered in cuts and bruises, she was dripping sweat from the fever, incessant heat, high humidity, and her clothes were torn and bloodied; stuck to her in rather unpleasant ways that would probably only lead to more unpleasant chafing in places she didn't care to think of.

She was a complete and total train wreck, proven more so by the firm grip she kept on Bruce's arm to keep herself grounded. Bruce had seen her in disheveled states that she wished she could make him forget. He did at least seem relieved to find that she was letting him help, at least as much as she could possibly allow herself to, but it was hard to find this trek any less awkward anyways with Betty just behind them, ever the silent follower.

They didn't make it far at all when pain hit her all too suddenly and her arm holding the gun wrapped around her midsection on instinct. Natasha doubled over and her grip on Bruce's arm loosened until she let go. When she was no longer holding onto him, Betty was beside her in an instant.

Betty didn't need to say a word though because the moment Natasha released her grip on Bruce, he stopped and fully turned to grip her shoulders, "Natasha?" It only took a moment for her to drop to the ground and he shifted to his knees with her. "Just tell me what's wrong—" and he didn't need to finish that statement because she was suddenly heaving out whatever might actually be in her stomach on the ground just beside him. The only thing he could seem to think of doing was to hold her damp hair back and rest an uncomfortable hand on her shoulder, "It's gonna be alright..."

Natasha wasn't so sure of that and to be honest, Bruce didn't sound all that sure of his statement either. The pain she was in must have been clear to see even after she stopped vomiting because Natasha knew she was struggling just to get back to her feet and he pulled her arm gently around his shoulders, much to her obvious dismay. "I'm fine..." came her murmured voice.

"You're not," he insisted. "It's not just us Natasha so I need you to let me help you," he added for good measure, "and I know you hate it but—"

"I know..." Natasha admitted as she glance in Betty's direction, "I know." But the pain wracked her entire body again and in an instant Ivan was standing just a few feet away again, holding the hand of her younger self. The fire burned all around her now, hiding Ivan and herself behind the dancing waves of endless reddish-orange and black smoke, dragging her back to memories she would sooner prefer to forget. The heat of the flames. The pain of the burns where they licked at her skin. Hiding under the bed and listening to the screams of—of a woman who had never died.

"Natasha..."

The smoke filled her lungs all over again and she tucked her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms tightly around them. Breathing felt near impossible even as arms tried to pull her to her feet. It was probably never real. None of it. No screams. Certainly no dying mother. There may have never even been a fire and all of that was just too much right now. What the hell about her _was_ real? What about _any_ of this was real?

"Bruce, they're coming!"

"We need to move, Natasha, I'm sorry but we need to move now!"

She looked up into Ivan's face as he dragged her onto her feet and she didn't hesitate to follow the man as he dragged her quickly from the fiery hell of her past.

"C'mon...I got you."

An arm tucked comfortingly around her as they ran and even though Natasha found it difficult to breathe, she didn't once dare to stop. The hurried movement told her they couldn't afford to even if she had wanted to. It wasn't until she felt her body being pulled down by someone else that her mind and the drugs stopped playing tricks on her. Ivan's face slowly morphed into Bruce's worried and stunned face. He was only just coming back into focus when his hand covered her mouth. That was when she recognized the noises nearby as the shouting of their former captors just a short distance away. "Bruce?" she mumbled out once the coast seemed to be clear.

Bruce's eyes locked onto her own and he looked somewhat relieved. "Well, at least you're not calling me Ivan anymore," he said with a sigh.

Before she could think to respond to that the sky boomed with a crack of thunder that made Betty jump out of her skin; then it was as if the heavens simply opened up and poured down over them. No single droplets came down to warn them of the onslaught, merely a hot and disgusting downpour that immediately drenched them from head to toe. Normally she would be grateful for the reprieve from the heat but this wasn't a reprieve, not when the rain wasn't at all refreshing because it was luke warm to go along with the already overly humid weather. The recurring and heavy wind only made the rain worse by pelting it sideways against them, enough so that it almost hurt, in fact it was a lot like being hit with little rain bullets over and over again.

"If this lasts more than a few minutes then we're screwed out here," Bruce mumbled out her exact thoughts, "even five minutes can drop a few inches..."

"An hour and we'll have floods everywhere..." Betty replied with a sigh, "how far can we get before that happens and...what do we do if it does?"

Natasha was well aware that she was only going to impede their escape, especially in a monsoon, but she also knew that neither were likely to leave her behind. Bruce especially, but she doubted Betty would either, the woman was too good for that. "Might be best to start running and see how far we get, before we can't get anywhere at all..." she told her.

"Sounds fun..."

"If it's any consolation, I've had to do this once before," Natasha told her after a few minutes of Bruce leading them onward once again through the onslaught of rain, "and I lived through that."

Betty actually chuckled. "That's...not at all reassuring," she commented with the barest of smiles.

"Yeah, she's never really been good at that," Bruce piped up over the rain.

Natasha supposed it was better than the nothing they had been getting from Betty since their escape. "Believe me it was much worse than this, that trip almost makes this one look like cake walk," she offered up next, "mudslides? Not fun."

"Definitely doesn't sound fun..." Betty answered with a half-smile.

"Wait..." she heard Bruce mumble out and Natasha paused just a few feet from the edge of an overhang.

She listened through the rain and finally heard the voices that he had heard. If she hadn't had the pounding headache that she did then she likely would have heard them long before he had and that was a thought that just didn't set well with her.

Natasha narrowed her eyes slightly as she glanced around the terrain. They were at the edge of one over hang, a good dozen or more of Stasia's men stood just below, a few more below another overhang under them. Chances were, there were even more below that if that uneven terrain kept on going downhill. Fifteen minutes of rain, a muddy overhang? It would do. "Not fun at all," she agreed, "but useful, at least in this case..."

She watched Bruce glance back at her as he tried to gauge her thought process. "I'm not going to like this, am I?" he questioned.

"You're gonna need to go green and not in an environmentally friendly sort of way," Natasha informed him.

Bruce released a heavy sigh, "I was afraid you were going to say that. You want me to cause the mudslide?"

"Going to need a little force for it," she told him, "hasn't been quite enough rain yet to just do it more naturally..."

"Right...okay," Bruce mumbled out. "You'll be okay?" he asked next.

"We'll stay back," she assured him. The look he gave her said that wasn't what he meant and she knew that before she had ever answered him. "I haven't seen anything that's not there since the Ivan incident," she told him, though fifteen minutes of being hallucination free probably wasn't long enough to say it was over. "We'll be fine," she told him as she glanced back at Betty, "right?"

Betty looked less certain but she nodded along anyways, something of which Natasha was entirely grateful for. "Right," she agreed.

"Okay, alright just—just stay up here until I—or he—comes back," Bruce sighed out.

Natasha moved herself and Betty back a good fifty feet before they tucked themselves into the crevice of a large tree. It wouldn't have been an ideal hiding spot under normal circumstances but between the foliage and the rain nobody was going to see them unless they walked right up on top of them and looked them in the eye.

"Are you really okay?" Betty asked.

"No," Natasha answered, "but if I told him that then he wouldn't have agreed to do this."

Betty gave a small nod, "Fair enough..."

Bruce's transformation was almost silent through the roaring storm and though she supposed that was because he was more in sync with his other half than he used to be, she imagined it still hurt like a bitch. She also assumed the men below him heard him more than she and Betty could but even so they would never get away. The Big Guy looked back at them and she wasn't sure he could actually see her, he still stared directly at her before he stomped the ground right at the edge of the overhang.

It worked far more easily than she thought. The ground beneath him shifted, then moved, and everything went over the edge. Bushes, mud, trees; nothing was spared for a good twenty feet back.

Including The Hulk.

"Holy crap..." she heard Betty mutter.

No kidding, Betty's words were almost an understatement of the chaos that ensued. That worked better than Natasha originally thought it would and she figured she might have underestimated just how heavily the rain had been coming down.

"I'm not sure anyone would believe me if I told them someone used The Hulk and a mudslide as a tactical maneuver..."

Natasha gave a tightlipped smile, "It might actually be one of the wierdest things I've done. You know...the aliens and robot armies not included."

She could see Betty studying her before the question came out, "How do you wrap your head around all that?"

"Still working on it," Natasha informed her, "but I'll let you know once I've figured it out." She heard Betty give a slight huff of a laugh and she knew the woman was about to make a comment. Beore it could happen Natasha heard something that put her on edge and she quickly clamped her hand over Betty's mouth. It was hard to hear between the pounding in her ears and the pelting of all that rain but it sounded like...

Sure enough a figure that was too large to be a person was outlined through the rain and darkness. Natasha couldn't put her finger on why but she was absolutely certain that was _not_ The Hulk. There was also a chance that nothing was really there now that she remembered the circumstances. Given the wide-eyed look on Betty's face though, Natasha was willing to bet it was real and that did little to ease the pounding of her heart.

"That's not him..." she heard Betty mumble against her hand.

"No, it's not..." Natasha answered quietly.

"W—what is it? It looks like the..."

"Abomination..." Natasha finished and she could only shake her head.

She didn't have an answer for what _this_ was, not yet, but she had a sinking feeling that this would only end badly. No matter that thought, whatever it was walked out of sight and she heard Betty release a sigh of relief. Still, that feeling didn't fade and suddenly a large grayish-green hand gripped the side of their hiding spot. She felt Betty practically jump out of her skin and then an equally discolored large head appeared before them, causing an actual screech to leave the brunette's lips.

The moment Betty screeched, he let out a roar equal to The Hulk and that hand reached in towards them. Natasha pushed Betty as far inside the crevice as they could possibly go and that large hand couldn't quite reach far enough back to grasp them.

And Natasha recognized the eyes of the beast before them.

"Nikolao..." she mumbled out. She released a shaky breath of her own as he growled and groaned and reached for them and she knew it was only a matter of time before he gave up just trying to reach in and instead uprooted the giant tree they hid within. The whispered comment left her lips before she could stop it, " _Bozhe moi_...what did she do to you...?"

"Natasha, what do we do?" she heard Betty ask.

It was a damned good question. The only way out was through the beast and she didn't quite imagine that would go over all that well. Natasha could feel her own heart pounding like the beat of a drum in her chest when he stopped trying to grasp for them. Instead Niko's monster disappeared from view and that didn't help to calm her in the slightest. It reminded her a lot of that feeling of unending fear when The Hulk had been about to smear her against the wall in the hellicarrier. In fact, the feeling this moment brought on was _much_ stronger and she knew why.

While the man behind Bruce's beast was sweet, and dorky, and unequivicably kind; the man behind Niko's monster was the polar opposite, the man was also a monster.

"We can't stay in here," she told Betty quickly.

"Why?" and that question came as the edges of the tree around them started to lift and the roots starting coming out of the ground around them in that moment.

Natasha grasped Betty's arm, "That's why!" His lifting the tree split an opening behind them that hadn't been there before and Natasha figured that was a lot better of an option then running out the front where he expected them or would see them. She pushed Betty through it first and quickly moved through behind her, "Go! Run!"

This would never end well. Natasha could hear both their feet slapping against the mud as they ran and any second now that thing would realize that they were gone. She wanted as much distance as possible before he came to that realization because it would come any minute. Unfortunately how they came about making that distance was _not_ how she would have preferred it to happen.

Before Natasha could stop Betty from taking the next step, Betty's foot stepped onto the edge of another overhang.

And everything under the brunette collapsed.

Letting go of her wasn't an option and in an attempt to stop Betty's topple down with all the mud, instead more mud went over the edge beneath Natasha's own feet and they both went over the side. Her grip on Betty's arm was long gone and it felt like ages of falling, rolling, and tumbling; every single hit against the ground painful and making it harder and harder to breathe before she finally landed in something cold with a _splash_.

Suddenly Natasha couldn't breathe for other reasons as water filled her lungs and her body moved faster than she thought possible. It took more strength than she thought she could muster to surface from her underwater prison and forcefully suck air back into her lungs.

Then she knew _why_ and _what_ was happening.

They had landed in some sort of river; a rapidly winding river at that.

 _They_...

Natasha fought to keep her head up as she opened her eyes and looked around. Betty was nowhere to be seen and she swiveled around as the river pulled her along at a rapid pace, searching with her eyes for where the brunette might be, if she was even there. There was always the possibility that Betty hadn't landed in the water, though Natasha was certain she had heard a splash just moments before she herself went in.

She found nothing with her eyes when her foot got caught on something and her head bobbed back under the water before she could think twice. Another mouthful of water was swallowed as she reached down for her leg and she had to open her eyes to try and see through the muk.

What she saw was the last thing she expected. Her foot may have been caught in roots of trees in the bottom of the river but she also saw Betty had suffered from the exact same incident just a few feet away.

Just out of reachable distance.

If Natasha pulled her own leg free then she would be pulled along with the river's current once more and lose sight of the brunette for good. It would be like leaving her to drown so instead she gripped the roots between them and forcefully pulled her way closer to Betty until she got her fingers gripped around Betty's wrist. It wasn't an easy feat in water but it was just enough to pull the other woman towards her more. A few seconds of pulling and she managed to get her arm all the way around Betty's waist before she yanked at the roots holding her leg in place.

She was so close to running out of the breath she was holding onto that she almost didn't have all her strength to get her foot free. Almost. Fortunately she managed and freeing one of them, not to mention having the water pulling at them, meant both of them went free and they were instantly on the move through the riptide again as Natasha tried to get them both back to the surface. It was hard enough before with just trying to keep herself afloat but Betty's dead weight made it seem almost impossible as Natasha forced them both above the surface.

There didn't seem to be any good way to stop their free flow down the river, not at first anyways. Natasha could barely make out the outline of fallen tree in the water that was still partially rooted to the ground just to the side of the river. That was their chance for reprieve, possibly their only chance, except they were in the center of the river and that tree didn't reach quite as far out as they were located.

Her lungs burned as she used her legs and just one arm to try and get herself and Betty more towards that side of the river. Everything hurt, muscles she didn't even know she had were throbbing, and more than once her and Betty wound up back under the water but they did manage to make it far enough over.

Natasha knew that could only mean one thing.

This was going to hurt.

There was no good way to prepare for this because she couldn't just _grab_ a damned tree, definitely not while trying to hold onto Betty at the same time. Instead she pulled Betty tightly against her chest, turned her back to it tree, and prayed she didn't knock herself out doing this or better yet; kill herself. One good thing was that all the movement along with Natasha's arm tight across Betty's stomach had been enough pressure that other woman coughed up the water in her lungs and Natasha knew she needed to warn Betty if she was awake. "Betty...Betty, don't move," she told her quickly, "and hold on tight because this is gonna hurt!"

"W—what?" she sputtered out. Clearly not quite aware enough to understand.

The warning would just have to be enough because Natasha felt the impact at her back a moment later and it was enough that her vision went dark around the edges and she was almost positive that she felt a rib or two crack from the impact. Before the last couple of days Natasha would have called the pain from that blow unbearable but that was no longer the case. That poison she had been shot with still took the cake over a few possibly cracked ribs.

Even so she found herself slowly slipping under the current again until she felt Betty pulling her back up. "Oh my God...oh my God," she heard the brunette mumbling, "Natasha, wake up! Please wake up, I can't pull us up!"

Natasha would be damned but she _was_ awake. She was, wasn't she? Or maybe she was only half aware now that she actually thought about it. She had to force her eyes open and she barely managed not to throw up from the instant vertigo. She turned her head and got her free arm up on the tree before she looked at Betty. "Okay...it's okay," Natasha murmurred, "reach up and start pulling yourself up."

"What about you?" came the instant question that Natasha saw coming.

"You first," Natasha insisted. She could see Betty looked uncertain about it and used the only legitimate excuse she could currently put her mind to, "I'm going to need you to help pull me up...plus I think I need a minute..." That was putting it mildly. She could use at least ten to try and recover from that blow but she knew they didn't have ten minutes.

Betty nodded her head immediately and started pulling herself up onto the tree as best she could, though it was a rather pathetic looking endeavor. Natasha finally managed to get her shoulder under Betty and her foot on a branch of the tree for added leverage. It was enough that she gave Betty the boost she needed to get out of the water and up on top of the tree.

The loss of Betty's weight caused Natasha to lose her footing and immediately she got a mouthful of water again as her head went under. She barely heard the muffled call of her name before she felt a hand grasp her own and then she could breathe again as she was helped back to the surface by Betty.

"Come on!"

It took all her energy to get one arm up on the tree and get her foot back up on the branch. Betty was pulling her other arm and just as they were starting to get Natasha herself pulled up, the branch she was using to stand on snapped between her weight and the current that was pulling at it. It was enough of a surprise that she lost her hold on the tree and her arm slipped from Betty's grasp in an instant because of both their water drenched hands, and she immediately dropped back into the water before either one of them could react.

In an instant the current yanked her back under before she even had time to comprehend what was happening and then she found herself trapped beneath the small space under the tree. The current of the river was trying to pull her further but there just wasn't enough space for it to happen and Natasha found herself well and truly trapped. She pushed at the mud at the bottom of the river with her hands, trying to force her way through with the help of the current that was pulling at her because her chances were a lot better being pulling through the river than drowning under this tree.

She was choking on water by the time she managed to force her way out the other side of the tree and she only barely managed to grasp onto the roots on the opposite side as she pulled her way back up to the surface without freely being yanked along the river again.

She could see Betty's back as the woman was desperately searching the opposite side, "Betty!"

Natasha saw the stunned look in the woman's blue eyes as she immediately turned to her. "Holy crap!" she heard the words rumble out of Betty's mouth and it probably would have been funny if circumstances were even a little bit better, "I—I mean—nevermind...grab my hand, come on!"

Again Betty's hand reached for her and Natasha reached up to grab for the outstretched hand. It felt as if every single force of nature was conspiring against her in this moment. Just as their fingertips brushed one another, the roots in Natasha's other hand split off from the tree and Betty and the tree were both gone from her sight in an instant as she was yanked backwards and pulled back under.

"No, no, no!" she heard Betty screaming the word over and over as she was continuously pulled under just after she would pull herself back up in the water. Hell, there were even moments where she could see Betty scrambling off the tree to try and run along the river bed after her but really, Natasha knew that was a completely useless endeavor and she imagined that Betty knew it as well.

Good grief, if she survived this then that three day flu she got last year would seem like a cakewalk with all the bacteria she was swallowing in this cesspool.

She hit something again, though this something moved more with her as she hit and hurt a hell of a lot less than the tree, all the air was still sucked out of her lungs again from the impact. It only took her a moment to realize that it wasn't a rock or a tree, but a giant mud-covered green arm reeled in her carefully and eased her much more gently out of the water. Once she remembered how to breathe she glanced up and saw the Big Guy staring down at her and she was definitely relieved to find it was him rather than Niko's other half.

Natasha wasn't sure if he had been searching for them or if they had merely wound up in the same area he had. Either way she was grateful as he waded his way easily to the side and climbed out of the river with her cradled gently against his chest, much like when he had rescued her back in Sokovia, and back in India with Ross.

It was remarkable how much care he took with her, how much effort he put in to being gentle, and as she saw Betty getting closer to them Natasha swore she was only going to close her eyes for a minute to take a breather.

Just for a minute...

* * *

"The storm is blocking satellite imaging from trying to find them," Tony heard the words come from his AI but he wasn't about to accept them.

"Switch to thermal imaging, Friday," he ordered, "they're here somewhere, we just need to look a little longer."

"Tony, what's that?"

He swiveled his head to the monitor that Steve was pointing at and frowned. Dozens of orange and red human shaped figures were along a road, even more inside a building that was basically in the middle of nowhere.

Tony quirked an eyebrow up, "That, my star spangled friend, is the very definition of suspicious."

"You think we've found them?" Wanda questioned.

"We definitely found something," Tony assured her as he pointed to two human sized red and orange specks in the woods, and one giant-sized one, "look at that. That look Hulk shaped to anyone else?"

He heard Steve chuckle in relief, "Looks like it to me."

"Then they got out," Wanda sounded even more relieved.

"Except there's nowhere to land this thing within a ten mile radius of them," Tony told them, "means we'll have to go get them the old fashioned way."

Vision's comment reminded Tony that the android had gotten his Jarvis' rather tacky sense of humor, "I hardly consider flying to be of old fashion."

"Guys—" Wanda called out.

"Semantics, V," Tony waved him off.

He watched as the Hulk shape went off at a rather high rate of speed.

"Guys..." Wanda gain.

"And where the hell is the Big Guy going?" Tony mumbled out.

"Guys!"

Tony turned in an instant to look at Wanda, "What is it?"

"If that was the Hulk...then what's this?" came her question.

He moved beside her and studied the termal imaging of the compound and yet another large red and orange Hulk-sized blob running towards the two little human ones. "What the hell?" he mumbled out.

"Two Hulks?" Steve questioned.

"Friday, how far away are they from us?" Tony asked quickly.

"Approximately 15.5 miles. If you leave the jet now you could arrive at their location in approximately forty-five minutes."

Steve said it before he ever could, "Everyone suit up."

"Keep the bird in the air, Friday."

"Of course, boss."

* * *

 **Didn't originally have that last part planned in but Mushy suggested it be added it. Can't just be leaving the other Avengers out now can we? :)**

 **Hopefully I can get the issue sorted with the website soon but if not then Mushy has very kindly offered to handle the updates until I do! She's too sweet.**


	13. Chapter 13

**And we're back.**

 **Chapter 12** :

" _What if the storm ends and leaves us nothing,  
except a memory, a distant echo?"_

Bruce couldn't be sure just how far his meaner and greener half wandered with an unconscious Natasha and a rather exhausted Betty but he had carried both onward for at least thirty minutes before finding a relatively safe looking place to put the redhead down for him to check on her. He was relieved to have the Other Guy once again transform back with ease because being left a shivering and half-unconscious mess wasn't going to help their cause.

The rain was still careening down and they were now hidden within a not so roomy crevice within some sort of limestone rock formation. While it was at least effective for cover from the storm and keeping them out of sight, it didn't leave a whole lot of room to maneuver around. Betty kept herself tucked into the back, Natasha was propped up with her head on his shoulder and one hand on his chest, and she was breathing sharp and painful breaths that left him worried. If their recent string of terrible luck kept up then he wasn't sure Natasha would ever make it off this island.

Not alive anyway.

"Is she...okay?" Betty's question broke his train of thought and he glanced over at her.

"She will be," he hoped so anyways. "Tell me exactly what happened..." Bruce requested to Betty in an instant as he placed his hand on Natasha's ribs. There was a groan from the redhead in an instant and he pulled her shirt up to catch sight of the ugly marring of blues and purples outlining her back. Both Natasha and Betty were muddied and bruised from whatever had actually transpired in that small amount of time he was apart from them...not to mention that Betty looked like she had the fear of God drilled into her bones.

"Bruce..." Betty's muttering of his name was even more worrisome, "that woman...I think she decided to remove you from her plans."

Bruce narrowed his eyes slightly at those words, "What are you talking about?"

"I think Stasia made a Plan B, Bruce. She made an Abomination..." Betty told him, "that thing it—it showed up right after The Hulk made the mudslide. Natasha said it was Nikolao..."

Thinking back on Natasha's expression when she looked up at his other half in the river, she _had_ looked half terrified for a moment before she looked absolutely relieved. It made a lot more sense now. It wasn't The Hulk that she was afraid of for those few seconds and one thought crossed his mind in an instant.

The Hulk had stopped moving so that Bruce could check on Natasha. If he had known about Nikolao's abomination then he would have never stopped.

"That thing found us in seconds and—and it was probably my fault," Betty mumbled, "she tried to put her hand over my mouth and keep me quiet and—and I talked anyways. I shouldn't have...I should have just been quiet—"

Bruce only shook his head at her comment, "Betty...that's not how he found you." He rubbed his eyes for a moment before he looked back at her, "you were afraid and he could feel it. He could smell it..."

"You—and he—he can do that?" she questioned.

He gave the smallest of nods in return. "You know, I always knew he got all that anger from me, from my past," he told her, "but I never realized one thing until Natasha said it." He could see the curiosity in Betty's face, "The thing that makes him even more angry...is how everyone who looks at him, looks at him like a monster."

"She doesn't look at him like that..." Betty mumbled.

Bruce gave a shake of his head, "She did." And he hated to wake Natasha, especially when he knew she needed to rest after everything that happened over the last week, but if there was an Abomination running around out in the jungle then they couldn't stay still for long. "We have to move..." he said, more to himself than to Betty.

Betty looked at him with uncertainty before her eyes shifted downward to Natasha, "Should we really move her?"

"We don't have a choice," Bruce answered as he placed his hand on Natasha's face, "Nat..." The redhead responded more quickly than he thought she would, albeit she didn't actually fully wake, she did start to move.

He felt the ground vibrate slightly beneath him and he could see that Betty felt it too. He could also see the way her eyes widened and he had a feeling he knew exactly why. Now he knew what people felt when The Hulk was nearby..

And he needed Natasha to wake up. "Natasha...wake up," he called in a rushed whispered, "you need to wake up right now!"

Her eyes shot open in an instant and Bruce could only assume she sensed that desperation in his voice. She looked alert even in her freshly awakened state and he saw her look around at their surroundings. She must have known something was wrong just in the way that she didn't move or say a word. Those verdant green eyes shifted to look out the small opening and Bruce followed them.

Bruce could feel the fear radiating off of her which meant that so could Nikolao. The last thing he wanted to do was leave her. The last thing he wanted to do was chance that this might be the last time he saw Natasha.

She was sitting up now and he only looked at her when he felt her gaze shift onto himself. She knew.

Her words came out quiet but without hesitation, "Bruce, no."

"Natasha...I need both of you to get out of here," he told her quickly, "I need you far away."

"Leave you to fight him alone?" she asked, "Bruce...I can't do that."

He knew that was the answer she was going to give him and he wished he didn't have to say what he did next, "And I can't do this if I'm worrying about you."

The look in Natasha's eyes appeared in an instant and although it showed clear understanding, he also recognized the hurt as she responded vocally, "I'll hold you back..." Her name was on the tip of his tongue, about to deny it when she shook her head, "Don't apologize for it, Bruce. I get it..." She rolled her shoulders and Bruce could see she was hiding physical pain. "I'll take Betty and go..." she assured him as she reached up to cup his face within her hands, "but I need you to make me a promise."

"Anything..." the same answer he had given her when she had told him in India that she needed him to do something for her.

"You need to promise that you won't leave me," Natasha told him in an instant, "I need you to promise me that you'll come back." He wanted to make that promise more than anything but he knew better, he knew that he shouldn't and even more so that he couldn't. It was one of those few times he saw the added shine in her eyes, making them brighter than usual due to the obvious sadness welling up inside of them, "Bruce...I—I..." and for just a moment he thought she was going to say those three words, just for one fleeting moment and he could see the struggle on her face, but the words never came...no words did.

He could see that Betty was tactfully avoiding looking at them and he appreciated that. He glanced at the crevice, knowing that he needed to go, and then he looked back at Natasha. Even if she couldn't say it, he could, he had already said it once before after all. Even so the words were still hard to get out and he wished it didn't keep coming down to near death situations for one of them to tell the other how they felt. He tucked one of those drenched strands of hair behind her ear and though he didn't make the promise she asked for, he was determined to at least tell her he loved her. The first time it hadn't come out even remotely the way he meant it to. It wasn't an 'I love you', it was 'You have no idea how much I love you'. He could still hear that soft tone of her voice when she had responded.

" _No...no, I didn't..."_

Bruce searched her eyes and he could see the fear. But it wasn't fear of Nikolao's abomination this time. This was fear for Bruce himself. She was afraid _for_ him...

"Bruce..."

Her voice broke his thoughts and he did the first thing he could think of. He placed his fingers under her chin and planted his lips against hers without hesitation. "I love you..." he whispered the words against her lips before he stood up to move towards the way they had entered into this rock formation. He paused and looked back at her, seeing the obvious distress on Natasha's face; she was fighting every instinct she had to join the fight and he knew that in an instant. "I'll distract him," Bruce told her, "five minutes, Natasha...then you need to run. There's another small crack that'll take you out the back...and you run as fast and as far as you can..."

Bruce swore she looked like she might actually shed a tear, something he never thought he would see and something he never _ever_ wanted to see. "Bruce..." she mumbled his name out again. He tried to turn and leave before she could say anything else but she was next to him in an instant, her fingers curled tightly around his wrist as she forced him to turn back and look at her, "You didn't promise."

"No...I didn't," he agreed, pressing one more chaste kiss against her lips. "Natasha...don't stop running," he told her quickly, "and don't come back."

"Bruce!"

He didn't listen this time as he pulled his hand from her grasp and ran out of their hiding place. He had wasted far too much time, so much time that he could see the beast lurking a short distance away as he got into the open, and it was staring directly at him.

* * *

Natasha had to force herself and every single fiber of her being not to run out after him. It was the strangest feeling she had now as she felt _something_ touch her face and when she reached up she knew why. It may have just been one single streak but it _was_ a tear and she honestly wasn't sure what to do with that.

She didn't _cry_. She had never cried before.

And then there was enough noise coming from outside their hiding spot that Natasha knew the two were already engaged with each other.

"Natasha..."

She turned her head to look at Betty and she could see the surprise on the woman's face. She knew that their five minutes were up, that they needed to run, that if they stayed then they would be the reason Bruce lost the fight. The Big Guy would protect them and Natasha could see the irony in how she used to think that her feelings for Bruce would hold her back, yet she never imagined it might be the other way around.

She also never knew that emotions could _physically_ hurt. She shoved it all aside, though it was a hell of a lot harder than she had ever found it to be before, and she grasped Betty's arm. As far as she could tell Betty had no weapons on her and Natasha couldn't find any of her own—they must have lost them in the river and she would just have to deal with anything they came upon without a weapon.

Natasha edged her way out through the tiny rear crevice that Bruce had told them to use. She made sure to go first and pull Betty along behind her, pausing only to make sure the coast was clear when they reached the end. Just when she thought it was safe to leave there was that enraged grayish-green face before her. The bellow he let out was mind numbing and just as she was about to shove Betty backwards, The Hulk slammed into him and both of them went crashing aside.

"What do we do?" came Betty's immediate question.

And it was a damned good one. This was the way that they needed to go. This was the way for them to escape. She could hear Bruce's voice in her head. _Run_. She glanced back at Betty and repeated that exact word, "Run."

Natasha squeezed out of the crevice and pulled Betty with her, not hesitating to yank the brunette along with her as she took off at a run through the onslaught of rain, going as fast as her feet and the mud would allow her to trudge along.

It was only a measly five minutes when she felt Betty slip behind her and Natasha stopped in an instant, pulling her back up to her feet. "It's okay, come on," she told her, pulling her along once more, "keep running."

This time Natasha kept a better grip on Betty's arm rather than just a hand on her wrist. She had her arm hooked with Betty's arm to keep her on her feet as they ran. Minutes dragged on and Natasha could hear the war between The Hulk and Niko's beast still raging on behind them. The rain couldn't drown out that train wreck of a fight until a good fifteen minutes of running went by.

She heard the men ahead before she ever saw them and it was the first time she released Betty's arm. She could see the confusion in those blue eyes but Natasha could just barely make out the outline of two men, they were just ahead on slightly lower terrain than herself and Betty. She needed weapons and she imagined that those two had some so she ran full speed, no warning, grasping the branch of a tree and launching herself forward.

Both the men landed on the ground, mud splattering everywhere as she practically rammed into both like a launched spear. Natasha would be damned but that had hurt like a bitch and it took a moment to remember how to breathe after her impact with them. By the time she caught air within her lungs again, one of the men was on top of her with his fingers tightly wound around her neck like a vice and his knees on top of her arms.

Under normal circumstance it wouldn't be so ridiculously hard to get her feet under him and up against his gut to launch him off of her but this was hardly normal circumstances. The ground was too slick from the mud and so was the guy that she needed to knock away so she couldn't get her feet under him to plant against him.

She couldn't get him off at all.

Natasha thought she was screwed completely when suddenly somebody impacted against her attacker, knocking him off in an instant. She had to admit her surprise when she realized Betty had just launched herself over the tiny little hill much like she herself had done and Betty took the man down. Even though it wasn't in the most graceful of ways, she also knew her own vault had left a lot to be desired as well and she merely found herself grateful for the save. Natasha stood in an instant when the other man went to reach for Betty and she jammed her foot into the back of his knee. He went down with a yell and Natasha grabbed hold of the back of his neck, shoving him face first into the mud as he struggled beneath her to try and get free.

Betty was still struggling to get to back up and Natasha let go of the man when he stopped moving and she immediately started patting him down for any weapons he had on him. The first thing she came up with was a knife and the timing couldn't have been better. Her instincts normally would have told her there was somebody else long before now but she could hardly trust what she could see let alone what she was feeling anymore. The man behind Natasha made a move to grab her but when she turned to look at him he faltered in an instant. It seemed her reputation proceeded her and something in her face seemed to have put him on alert, hell, he almost looked afraid.

But the knowledge that he should be afraid wasn't enough to save him.

Natasha stood so fast that pain rippled through her entire body and she rammed her shoulder right into his gut. She could hear the way his breath left him from the blow and she immediately swept his feet out from under him with her foot before she climbed on top of him.

Absolute fear, hatred and self-preservation from her childhood took over her mind and body when his face morphed into the face of the 'enforcer' of Red Room. The man who beat her when she did something wrong, who broke her when she did nothing wrong; the face of the man who ruined the lives of little girls just because he enjoyed it, a man who had hands that went places they didn't belong, a man who shattered innocence and replaced the broken pieces with malice.

Natasha drove the knife into his beating heart over and over and over.

"Stop..."

She thought she heard that word a few times.

"Natasha! Natasha, stop!"

She raised the knife in an instant and made to drive it into the person who grasped her arm. It was nearly too late when she realized that she knew the person, that those wide blue eyes were looking in fear at Natasha herself. The knife was just a breath away from one of those eyes and she felt her hand shaking as her recognition of Betty came forward.

Betty's voice came out shaky but almost comfortingly as the other woman's fingers gently encircled around Natasha's wrist, lowering her hand as slowly as possible, "It's okay..." Somehow Betty must have realized that her mind had played yet another cruel trick on her because she looked much less fearful and a lot more worried. "It's okay..." she repeated again, "whatever you saw— _whoever_ you saw...they weren't real."

Natasha took a few deep breaths as reality sunk back in and then she shifted her eyes from Betty's wide-eyes and down to what she had just down. The man's chest looked like it had been butchered and this time she couldn't even blame it on her programming. It was childish fear from two dozen years ago that flamed up and spiraled out of control.

"I'm afraid to ask you who you thought he was..." came Betty's cautious voice.

She felt herself grimace just at the thought, then she saw him again, this time though it was as he beat down the girls with that damned wooden kendo stick.

"Natasha?"

She couldn't remember how to breathe in that moment, or maybe she actually just couldn't breathe, either way the panic flared throughout her entire body.

"Hey, hey!" Betty's voice came through the ringing in her ears, "Please don't lose yourself now because I don't know what to do..."

Natasha shifted her eyes between the Enforcer and Betty before she settled on Betty due to the desperation and fear in the brunette's voice. It seemed to take forever before she could breathe again and then she realized it might not have been due to her hallucination. She could feel herself sweating even with the rain beading down on her.

"You need a doctor..." Betty's voice sounded even more concerned than before.

Natasha didn't entirely disagree though the truth was that right now it didn't matter one bit. "Does he have a gun?" she finally questioned in a raspier than usual voice, nodding her head to the guy that Betty had knocked off of her before.

Betty moved to him and patted the guy down and Natasha watched as her brow furrowed as she came up with a knife and a gun.

Natasha was at least relieved to see that they were armed again. She watched as Betty held the weapons out to her while she pulled the gun out of the holster of the man she was on top of, "Got my own, you know how to use that knife?"

"Pointy end forward..."

It was the first real laugh Natasha felt herself give in a long while and she shook her head slightly when it left her a little breathless from the pain in her ribs. "Guess that'll have to do..." she decided. The amusement was also quick to dissipate the moment she caught sight of her butcher work below her.

"Wouldn't it be better if you kept it?" was Betty's immediate question.

Normally Natasha would have agreed but she shrugged, "I'll feel better if you have something, preferably something that keeps you at a distance, but mostly because if this keeps happening to me then you might need it." She could see that Betty was about to say something and she didn't wait for her to speak again, instead she made sure to tell her the most important thing as she moved over to the man she had initially stopped from attacking the other woman, "Betty if that happens again— _do not_ try to stop me." She removed a knife from him too, then unhooked the shoulder holster he had and pulled it over her own shoulders, tucking the previous gun into the second holster on the other shoulder.

The brunette pursed her lips shut before giving a nod.

"I know you wanted to help," Natasha assured her, "but the things I saw—or might see again...I don't trust myself to stop."

"Okay..."

"We have to keep moving," she told her next.

That thought was gone in an instant as Natasha froze. She heard bellowing from one of the beasts and then the whole ground started shaking at intervals. It didn't quite make sense to her as to why until it was almost too late. There was a thud, the ground shook beneath them, another thud, and then more shaking. She counted at least seven times before she _saw_ what made it happen. Her eyes widened immediately as she saw the blob of mud covered green come careening through the jungle, though not of his own volition. The Hulk hit tree after tree as though he had been thrown, splintering each and every single one that he hit, and Natasha immediately grabbed hold of Betty, throwing her down and covering her as the Big Guy flew right over top of where they were.

She kept Betty tucked under her when Niko's beast came running and he leaped just over where they were. He didn't seem to notice them at first, or perhaps he just didn't care that they were there as he approached The Hulk because he was ignoring their presence completely.

Dread filled the pit of her stomach as she realized that the Big Guy wasn't moving from the spot where he landed, not even a finger twitched. "No..." the words fell from her own lips in a whisper.

"Oh my God..." Betty murmured.

But Nikolao's abomination didn't seem to care as he continued to move towards Bruce until he was standing just above him, towering over the scientist. It was a terrible idea, a terrible plan, and Bruce would hate her for what she was about to do but her feet were moving of their own volition as she pounced on the Niko's back, jabbing the knives into him like little anchors while she dug her feet into his back. Suffice it to say he was more angry than she had ever made The Hulk given the way he hollered and reached back to try and remove her. He fumbled around for a while, spinning in circles and moving several feet away, trying to grasp for her before that giant hand got a hold of her.

The next thing Natasha knew she was being thrown and she skidded across the mud and landed right on top of the Big Guy. His eyes opened in an instant, wide and pained, and clearly he hadn't expected to see her.

"Ta-sha..." even his voice sounded pained and she thought she understood why he was losing now. He was never meant to change back and forth as often as he already had in such a short amount of time.

Niko's beast loomed over them and she was still struggling to move when he grabbed her with both hands. The groan left her lips in an instant as he squeezed her arms against her sides.

The Hulk rumbled out feral enough noise in reaction to what happened and it was also enough that Niko's monster threw her aside like a rag doll. She rolled through the mud again until a tree stopped her and Natasha swore she might just vomit again. By the time she managed to stop her vision from spinning in circles it was only in time for her to see Niko's beast pounce atop The Hulk again.

She could also see Betty running towards her as Natasha tried to crawl to her feet and she quickly waved the other woman off, surprised to see that Betty actually stopped. She fought through the nausea as The Hulk launched Niko through the air like a catapult and Natasha had to drop back down as he slammed into the tree behind her that she herself had just hit.

Niko went straight through it, uprooting the tree and Natasha felt her own eyes widen as the tree came toppling down towards her. She couldn't scramble out of the way fast enough and Natasha would have sworn that was the end when the entire tree stopped just a foot above her. She didn't even have to move out of the way herself when the Big Guy grasped her with one arm and pulled her up before he swung the tree at Niko as the beast clambered towards them again.

Once more she watched as Niko flew across the wooded area, through more than a few trees and she found herself being placed back down beside Betty.

He turned and looked at her in an instant and she was still trying to remember how to breathe when he spoke a single word, "Run."

Hell, she thought they had put a fair amount of distance between them and the fight already but that clearly hadn't been the case. Apparently the fight had been following them the entire time, it just hadn't caught up until she and Betty had gotten caught up in their own fight. She could only nod her head and she had to pull Betty back with her when Niko came out of nowhere, ramming into the Big Guy as they both tumbled aside.

"C'mon," she mumbled out, pulling Betty along with her as she tried to make an escape through the trees. The effort was in vain because Niko's grayish green form jumped and landed right in front of them. Pushing Betty behind her was even more in vain because he lifted Natasha herself up before Betty was swatted aside with his other hand.

He raised her up face to face with him and Natasha was sure that he could feel and hear her heart thumping a million miles an hour. That moment of being face to face with him was when she fully comprehended why he had been so intent on not letting her and Betty get away.

Bruce and Betty had become expendable in Stasia's ultimate goal. If she was right about how the Lullaby worked then now that she had created Niko's monster, Bruce would no longer be a necessity.

Natasha could actually see The Hulk pacing back and forth, staring and seething, and she had a feeling the reason he hadn't tried to pummel the Niko was because she was currently held in his grasp. She still had access to one hand and so she did the only thing she could to force her release. She yanked the pistol out of the holster and pulled the trigger right in Niko's eye.

She hit the ground in an instant as he let go and she could hear the ground trembling behind her as the Big Guy realized he had an opening. She dove aside when he bellowed out a warning and watched as he took down Niko who was still hollering and holding his giant hands to his eye.

Last she saw The Hulk was pummeling Niko into the dirt as she made her way to Betty as quickly as possible, but the hope of escape died right there as she realized the brunette had not only been tossed aside like a rag doll but she had hit head-first into a tree. She studied the damage of the bleeding gash across Betty's forehead and if that didn't at least leave her with a concussion Natasha would be surprised. She pulled Betty's arm around her neck and started pulling her up when she realized everything had gone eerily silent around them aside from the continuous spattering of rain hitting the muddy ground.

She actually had a brief moment of hope where she thought Bruce and the Big Guy had won. When she looked in the direction they had been fighting in however she found the opposite to be the case. Niko's raging beast stood over a de-Hulked Bruce Banner and she swore her heart dropped to her stomach when he plucked the unconscious scientist from the ground and started to squeeze. Maybe she had seen wrong. Maybe when she glanced over at had been Niko pummeling the Big Guy...

Either way it didn't matter now because the end result was terrifying.

Natasha laid Betty back down in an instant when she eyed the knives still embedded in Niko's back. She didn't hesitate for a moment to run forward to try and grip them again but this time he simply turned around and swatted her back like she was nothing.

It was enough to hurt; not nearly enough to kill or knockout like he had done with Betty and Bruce.

Even Niko was taking care not to do irreparable damage to her and in that moment she knew exactly what to do to stop him.

Natasha pulled the second gun from the holster and shouted to him, "Niko!"

For a moment he merely glanced at her like she was nothing more than a minor nuisance and she saw the double take he took when he realized she had the gun to her own head.

"You need me alive," she reminded him in a stronger voice than she had thought she was capable of at that very moment, "and if you want me to stay alive then _drop_ him!"

If looks could have killed then she would have been dead in an instant. He looked like he might very well throw a tantrum then and there as he looked between her and Bruce.

She cocked the gun when he still looked indecisive, "Let him go!"

The noise he emitted was more predatory than any she had heard before and Natasha felt her heart beating more rapidly with each second that went by. This moment brought her back to her conversation with Bruce back when Tony had first dropped her on his doorstep in India. He had asked her if she ever thought it might just be easier to end things during her lowest points. Her response had been to tell him that she thought of it every day, except that she didn't deserve to take the easy way out.

She also remembered telling him that his initial observation of her, that she wasn't good for him to be around, was true.

That was proved to her over the last several days but for reasons she never could have foreseen.

Bruce loved her and she had been used against him. For the first time she was somebody's weakness and maybe eating the bullet would be more of a favor for everyone in her life.

Niko looked equal measures of enraged as he tried to make a decision over what to do with her ultimatum and the gun felt heavy in her hand. Enlarged fingers squeezed the scientist harder and she put her finger on the trigger, watching as Niko's feral eyes narrow while he tried to call her bluff.

Except she wasn't bluffing.

* * *

 **Yep...now you all really hate me, don't you?**


	14. Chapter 14

Okay so the general consensus is that you all want to murder me. Lmfao. At least I didn't make you wait very long, right? I'm not _that_ cruel.

 **Chapter 13** :

" _I was down, I was out and I had lost it all  
I was scared, I was torn and I took to the night  
I'd given in to the fight as I slipped further down  
and I felt like I had drowned..."_

"How much further? We should have been there by now," Tony questioned aloud, "plus I think Spangles here ate one too many of those All-American apple pies."

"Yeah because somehow this is any more comfortable for me, Stark," Tony heard Steve mumble the words under his breath and he smirked behind his helmet as he had his arms hooked under Steve's arms and flew the man to their destination.

"If they're fighting they could be in a completely different place then where we last saw," Sam piped up.

Before any of the rest of them could comment, Friday came through all of their headsets, "Boss, the satellite has sent more thermal imaging and has them just ten minutes East of your current location. It also appears that one of the Hulks has de-Hulked."

"Good thing we all know that the original is always the best," Tony offered up with a uneasy chuckle.

Wanda's words ruined his efforts of nonchalance, "I don't think that this is a good thing..."

He turned his head to where Vision was carrying the witch and he was almost afraid to ask, "...why not?"

"It's Natasha, I can feel her..." Wanda answered, "we need to go faster!"

Tony swore his heart just dropped to his stomach at her words as they all swerved to go East.

* * *

Every single second ticked by in her head like a clock directly next to her ear. Every beat of her heart made her feel like she was being hollowed out and bled dry. Yet having the gun to her head and holding her own life in her hands for the first time felt almost like a reprieve from having been caged for so long, almost like a breath of fresh air in the smog that had been filtered through her mind, the pollution that she was forced to believe to be her life.

It tasted a lot like freedom.

But her life was her only bargaining chip now so she continued the stare down with Niko's monstrosity for only a moment longer before she spoke, "I'm what you're after."

Natasha could see him sneer at her as he squeezed the scientist tighter between his hands and she was afraid Bruce might just break in half if it kept up for much longer.

"She needs me," she reminded him.

Niko didn't particularly seem to care what Stasia wanted or needed, at least not this half of him, though on some level she imagined that Niko himself also didn't.

She needed a new tactic and she realized with her words, _I'm what you're after_ , that her life _wasn't_ the bargaining chip; not the part of it where she lived or died at least. She only had the one weapon in her arsenal that she always had.

A weapon she had used so many times in the past.

"You remember when we were kids, Nikolao?" she questioned softly through the rain. His eyes narrowed again but he didn't move and he didn't snap Bruce like a twig so she assumed he was listening to her. "There was a time you used to love me..." she stated cautiously, "before she took it from you."

 _That_ got his attention.

Niko's beast threw Bruce aside far too roughly for her liking and he came stalking towards her. Her original thought in that moment was that Stasia hadn't been wrong, that maybe the serum _was_ the connection between herself and Bruce, and that it was now also about to work between herself and Niko. It was believable enough that she removed her finger from the trigger as he came towards her.

With Bruce she needed to seem nonthreatening and it stood to reason that Niko would need to see her in the same light. She dreaded giving up the one thing that made her feel in control in this moment but Bruce's life was worth it. She tucked the gun back into the holster as he came towards her.

"There was a time I believed you would never hurt me," Natasha reminded him of the conversation they had when they were children before he had broken the news to her that 'he would hurt her, that she would hurt him', and that 'it was what they did'.

It was who they were. It was who they were made to be. Intricately designed to inflict pain and suffering to everyone they came across both physically and emotionally.

But it didn't change the fact that he _did_ love her...right up until Stasia and Red Room killed every single thing about him that was human.

And she had never understood then just what he felt for her, not that she was sure that she could have felt the same for him even back at the young age. She had never been taught how, never had a role model to look to as an example of what it should be like, not until she saw Clint and Laura.

And until Bruce she had never understood just what those feelings could make a person do. He had given up his freedom just to save her life and freedom was something he valued more than anything. It was something she valued too but she found herself willing to do the exact same thing for Bruce in this very moment.

Maybe that was love.

Natasha would be damned if she knew for certain but she did remember hers and Niko's words to each other in Samara a year ago when Niko and Strucker strapped her to that chair and tried to rip away who she had become.

" _And what do you get out of this, Nikolao? Because either way this happens you must get something. So what is it? Money? Freedom?"_

" _You."_

Even when he had put her in that chair, when Strucker was about to pull away her memories, Niko had looked almost regretful that he was doing it when she had tried to convince him not to.

Even if she had been right when she told Tony that the man who loved her had died, because she knew that Red Room had killed any part of that Nikolao that was human, there was still a part of him that desired her. That had always desired her.

That was the card she needed to play now.

It was the _only_ card she had left to play even if it left a bitter aftertaste in her mouth.

After all...

This was what she was made for.

A giant hand pushed against her and she lost her ability to breathe when her back hit the tree behind her and his hand remained to keep her trapped against it.

But at least she had his undivided attention.

Natasha forced herself to remember how to breathe before she spoke. "I'm what you wanted this whole time, right?" she asked him softly, "this was never about doing what Madame B wanted...this was about what _you_ wanted."

He snarled as his face came closer to hers and she could tell it was his way of studying her further. He couldn't seem to decide if she was a threat or not and quite frankly she couldn't blame him. Niko knew her. He had always known her.

"I kept waiting for you to tell me," she had almost forgotten just how easy it was to lie to people who held no real significance to her. She had gotten for too used to not having to lie to the point where she typically didn't bother to do it any longer. Sure, she neglected to inform people of certain things but she didn't straight out lie about them anymore. She had tried to lie to Bruce in India before they were attacked, tried to make him believe that she hated him rather than tell him she was dying but she just couldn't make it last. With Niko the lies flowed out smoothly, "I kept waiting...but you never did."

Those fingers squeezed just slightly but only for a moment, is if in warning not to test him, and then they loosened again. She was still trapped but he _was_ listening. It was too bad that she wasn't sure just how much more pressure her ribs could possibly take before one really snapped. _Everything_ hurt.

"I can be yours," she offered up, ignoring the foul taste it left in her mouth as she did so, "but you never needed Madame B to get me, Nikolao, you just needed to tell _me_..."

For a moment she saw his head swivel to look at Bruce before he looked back at her, angry and clearly not quite believing of what she said as he sneered. It was harder and harder to squelch the fear building up inside that he wouldn't believe her lies. Finally she came to the conclusion that she really _would_ go with him...but only under a few circumstances.

"I can be yours," she repeated truthfully, "but only if you don't kill him—only if you won't take me to _her_."

Malice filled eyes stared at her before glancing back to Bruce's form again, then back to her, and again she felt her body squeezed.

"Just you and I..." Natasha promised him.

His breath was hot on her face as he breathed deeply and she didn't dare look away. Finally he did the last thing she expected and he released his hold on her, grayish-green facial features twisting in some strange combination of anger and fascination before he snarled one word out, " _Mine_."

"Yours..." she repeated.

Natasha felt her back hit the tree when she instinctively moved herself back the instant a blur of green rammed full force into Niko in front of her and sent the beast sailing aside. She sucked in a disbelieving breath and released it when she realized that it was _Bruce_.

Sort of.

It wasn't quite Bruce but it wasn't quite The Hulk either. His skin was tinged green, his body was in the somewhat larger stages, yet it was as though he didn't have it in him to fully Hulk out.

But he must have awakened to hear her conversation with Niko and that tore at her in ways she hadn't expected.

"Bruce!" she called his name quickly when he all but collapsed again and she grabbed hold of him as he paled. She went down with him in an instant, mud splattering around them.

Niko was understandably mad when he stalked towards them howling out in rage and she grasped the barely aware Bruce more tightly to her. He was trying to protect her and she knew that, trying not to let her do something that she would have to live with for the rest of her life, but she _could_ live with it; she could do that for him. She had to force herself to stop from screaming out when Niko yanked Bruce from her clutches.

He looked like he might tear the scientist limb from limb and she had to scramble to her feet as fast as possible. "No!" her voice came out with a certain level of desperation that she never knew she could feel and it was almost strangled as she got the next words out, "If you kill him I—I will never be yours..."

Again he threw Bruce down and her heart was racing a million beats a minute.

Bruce's body couldn't take anymore and yet he got up again looking ragged and weary, like he might just fall apart and she tried her damnedest to make him stop, just stop and give up. "Bruce, Bruce _no_!" she could feel her voice break as she tried to move to get between them but Niko merely shoved her back into the mud before he swatted the scientist like a bug.

Natasha tried to run to where Bruce landed again but Niko turned and grabbed hold of her throwing her aside like a rag doll. She had thought everything hurt before but now—now pain radiated through every fiber of her being; it practically reverberated in her chest like violent drum beats and she choked on the very air she was breathing as she tried to crawl to her feet. This time the strangled cry came from her own lips as he reached for Bruce to start the onslaught again, "No!"

It stopped Niko in his tracks and he turned to her instantaneously. Given the enraged look in his eyes, something told her he no longer believed any of the things that she said and then he proved it. He stalked towards her again and plucked her right off the ground. She was face to face with him again when his words came out seething, "Never mine!"

He wasn't wrong, she knew that the moment Bruce had kept getting up—only this time he wasn't, this time she could see him unmoving, not so much as a twitch; she wasn't even sure if his chest was rising and falling and _that_ was when she fully comprehended that Niko was right. She could pretend to be his for as long as she had to but she could never really be his, something that both of them understood in this moment.

Her only card to play, the only thing she had keeping all three of them alive...

It was gone in an instant.

He dropped her on the ground with no warning and reeled his hand back, a moment she recognized as being equal to that moment on the Helicarrier with the Hulk. Despite the rain her mouth was completely dry from the panic she felt. There was nowhere to go when she pushed backward through the mud and a tree impeded her rather pathetic attempt at escape.

That arm swung forward and she raised her hands as though not seeing it might somehow stop it from happening. Her heart raced faster and faster, yet before she could comprehend _what_ happened, Natasha heard something metal impact his chest while feet sloshed into the mud nearby.

The air was sucked out of her lungs in an instant but she would recognize that red and gold armor anywhere as she was snatched from where she stood by Tony Stark himself, clad in his Iron Man armor, while Steve and his shield distracted Niko. The shock on her face must have been apparent because as he landed a decent distance away while carrying her in those metal arms, the face mask released and showed his real face. "Did you miss me?" was Tony's immediate question.

Natasha would be damned but she did and she could have kissed the man in that moment. She couldn't even get a word out as she turned to look and she watched as Wanda used her powers to levitate down before she swung the largest red beam of energy at Niko that sent him careening through the jungle. Even as Niko skidded himself to a stop, remaining on his feet, he was thoroughly distracted by Sam flying circles around him only to end up getting knocked over by Steve's shield and Steve right behind it with one hell of a punch.

"They made a Hulk?" Tony asked her as she found herself back on wobbly feet. At her nod his frown made an immediate appearance as he got his arm back around her to keep her steady, "Where's _our_ Hulk?"

The truth was that she was too afraid to look.

"Natasha?" came her name again. Metal fingers clamped down on her shoulders and she looked back at Tony again as he spoke, "Where's Bruce?"

Her mouth opened, closed, the repeated the same motions before she finally just looked in the direction that she had seen Bruce. Now that she was staring at the motionless body of the scientist she couldn't drag her eyes away, she couldn't force a word from her mouth, and she couldn't quite remember how to force her legs to move. She knew Tony had followed her eyes with his own when his hands dropped off her shoulders in an instant.

"Stark, a little help would be nice."

"Go check on him," she heard Tony order her next, "and we'll take care of that—that thing." She was still staring in silence when Tony broke her from it with his hands on her shoulders and a rather rough shake, "Natasha, _snap out of it_."

That was the moment she realized she had yet to speak a single word to him since he snatched her from the brink of death and she turned back to look at him.

He looked more concerned than he did annoyed with her lack of response to him and his words proved the thought to be valid, "I don't know what happened to you...but I'm just asking you to pull it together for a little bit longer, Nat."

What happened to her?

What happened was that she thought she may have finally snapped when she put that gun to her own head, that she had sincerely considered putting a bullet in her brain and that she still wished that she had, that she had offered herself up to a real monster because the thought that Bruce might die was too much to bare. What happened was that the woman who did all of this, who took everything from her and somehow still continued to take everything, was her own mother.

She took a breath, tried to swallow it all and shove it into that box she always kept in the back of her mind, but the truth was that she couldn't do it anymore. Nonetheless she agreed without telling Tony that, her voice coming out almost monotonous, "Okay."

"Okay..." and she was pretty sure he didn't believe her any more than she believed herself.

Her feet moved themselves in Bruce's direction and she only paused when she stopped to drag Betty's arm around her neck. She lifted her as best she could as she half-walked Betty and half-dragged her along in her wavering path to Bruce.

And she only paused when she heard the conversation being yelled.

"Where's Veronica?!" her brain told her that was Steve's voice carrying through the wind and rain, "and where's Rhodey?!"

Natasha cringed as Tony was grabbed by Niko and repeatedly slammed into the ground...

But no giant suit of armor ever appeared.

It was a lot like watching failure after failure because this might be a crazed beast much like when The Hulk fought, but while Bruce himself was all science, Niko was a killer; trained to fight and murder for just as long as herself.

Tony was sent soaring into Vision who had been about to attack and both tinmen went dragging through the mud together. Only a moment later Sam met the exact same fate as he was thrown into Steve and suddenly the only line of defense in that exact moment was Wanda, though Niko seemed to care less about that because Natasha saw him coming running for herself and Betty. He was running full force without care when both Tony and Vision tried to hit him with repulsors to try and stray him from his target.

It was another moment where she felt her heart begin to race and just when she thought he was going to achieve his goal of smashing her to the high heavens, Wanda was standing in front of her.

The large wave of red energy the young girl manipulated with her hands looked like it took far more energy than anything that Wanda had ever done before. The red wave completely enveloped Niko entirely, lifting him from the ground and setting him off kilter as the beast snarled, clawed and roared in hatred and loathing. She saw Wanda look back at her and she could see it in the young girl's eyes.

Wanda knew.

She knew everything that Natasha had been feeling and Natasha wondered for just how long she had felt it, from how far away and at what point had Wanda known and felt all that she herself felt? Did it include her confused thoughts about whether or not what she felt for Bruce was considered love? Or did Wanda only notice the fear and pain?

If she was honest with herself, she almost hoped Wanda knew it all so that maybe someone could _tell_ her what it was she was feeling.

Natasha grimaced when she realized Wanda wouldn't be able to contain the beast for very long, especially not if the weary and exhausted look on her face was any indication. Nothing that Steve, Tony, Sam or Vision threw at him seemed to have any affect other than to make him more and more angry; and they were _all_ hitting him now.

The only thought racing through her mind at that exact moment in time was that she would be the reason now that not only Bruce was dead, and Betty was dead...but the reason that the entire Avenger's initiative died.

"Don't do that."

Natasha locked eyes with Wanda in an instant and saw the younger girl looking back at her, all while holding the energy around Niko to keep him contained.

"Whatever happens, this is not your fault," Wanda told her in one of the most reassuring voices she had ever heard, "and this—this is _not_ where you die—where _we_ die. _"_

Natasha almost believed her. Almost.

She heard Tony the second his disbelieving comment came out, "What the hell? Is that Veronica?"

"Tony, we really gotta work on that satellite's retrofitting for this suit because I do _not_ know how to use this thing!" came Rhodey's obviously unhappy voice.

She stared in shock as the giant suit of armor not so gallantly flew into Niko and both of them went rolling through the mud.

"It's like the suit you're already wearing but—you know—bigger. Jeez Rhodey, make him go to sleep! He's gotta be close to being out of juice!"

Given the way the Veronica suit was taking punches to the helmet over and over she didn't blame Rhodey's next comment given that he was the one who accidentally wound up wearing it, "Somebody forgot to tell _him_ that!"

Natasha let her eyes drift back to Bruce who still hadn't moved since Niko last got a hold of him. All she wanted to do was collapse and give up but she finally willed her feet to move again, surprised to see that Wanda moved with them, almost as though she were acting like a barrier should Niko get free and try again. It seemed Wanda believed the others had it well in hand because the young girl grasped Betty's other arm and pulled it over her shoulder. It was a relief to her pained ribs as some of the weight was removed by Wanda's aid.

Wanda helped her rest Betty down a good distance away from the ensuing fight as Steve, Sam and Tony would occasionally distract Niko so that Rhodey could get the advantage inside the Veronica suit. Bruce was only a few steps away now and she dreaded each and every single one.

The next sound was almost like a horror-filled nightmare of growling and Natasha looked up in an instant just as she had gotten to her knees and pulled Bruce to her.

It was Niko's beast as he swung Rhodey around, and around, and around, before that giant suit of armor slammed into all the other Avengers like bowling pins.

He turned in their direction again and Natasha tightened her hold on Bruce with one arm as she used her other hand to remove the gun from the holster, not that it was of any use against him. She narrowed her eyes slightly when she noticed the smallest of sparks come from the eye she had shot earlier. It was almost imperceptible.

She recognized that technology.

Natasha felt her mouth open just slightly and her voice came out raw, something foreign almost to her own ears, "Wanda."

The young girl was already partially in front of herself and Bruce, trying to throw energy balls at Niko to delay him, when she turned and looked back at her.

"His eye. Hit his injured eye."

Wanda's eyes narrowed before she turned to look back at him, then she seemed to understand where Natasha wanted her to aim. Natasha fired bullets as Wanda threw tiny and precise pellets of energy, the type of precision that Natasha had been teaching her before everything went to hell and back.

Sometimes bigger wasn't always better and finesse over brute force was occasionally the better tactic.

Natasha was certain that the bullets and Wanda's energy shots were hitting the target but her plan wasn't working and she had a feeling that her initial shot had short wired the device in his eye that she was trying to activate now.

He was running towards them, screaming in absolute anguish and rage, and Natasha laid Bruce back down as gently and quickly as she could. She finally stuffed it all inside, as far back as she possibly could, and focused solely on a plan. "Wanda...can you hold him?" she asked.

Wanda looked uncertain and tired but she held her hands out and enveloped the beast in red waves again.

Except he was fighting through it and she was eternally grateful when Rhodey came up in Veronica from the side and grabbed hold of Niko with both hands to plant him down in place.

"Whatever you're going to do, Natasha...now is the time," Wanda told her.

Natasha took a deep breath before she ran forward and leaped up to grip a hold of the knives still embedded in his back. Clambering up his back and onto Niko's shoulder painfully reminded her that something may very well be broken and she bit back the pain and the urge to throw up.

What she saw had better not have been a hallucination because she couldn't take anything else going wrong or she might very well lose her mind completely.

There was a moment where he looked at her and she knew that _he_ knew. She had to remind herself that he wasn't that young boy who taught her how to survive, that if she didn't do this then she really would be the reason that they all died because he would _never_ stop. She yanked the knife out of his back, placed her hand on that enlarged face and said the one thing she never thought that she would say, "I'm sorry."

She drove the knife into the already injured eye and he screamed out in agony and rage. She had to dig for what she was looking for, so much so that Wanda and Rhodey had such a difficult time holding him still that Natasha almost fell off of him.

It was only when each and every one of the other Avengers took hold of him that he was steady enough and she finally found it. She drove the knife straight into the trigger and the effect was instantaneous.

The eye was HYDRA design, a camera but also an internal bomb.

And it exploded in his head immediately.

The second it happened he shrunk down and each Avenger fell backwards and Natasha herself fell onto her back as he became his human counterpart once more.

One very dead Nikolao Constantin laid in the midst of them all and Natasha sat up and took a few unsteady breaths.

"Holy shit..." Tony was the first to mutter any words.

She couldn't focus on the victory because her mind instantly went back to Bruce. She moved back to him without the hesitation she had earlier, staring down at him and his paler than usual pallor. He was white as a ghost and she couldn't find the rise and fall of his chest with her eyes. For a moment she covered her mouth with her hand before she willed herself to touch her fingers to his neck.

"Bruce..." his name came out as a whisper when she felt no pulse from his neck and again everything went eerily silent around her.

Natasha's entire mouth went dry when he didn't move or respond and her breath was caught up in her throat. It was like all the pressure of everything she had ever buried suddenly steamed up to the top and something inside her shattered.

"Bruce," she tried again, her voice breaking in ways she never knew was possible for her.

 _This_ wasn't possible. Bruce and The Hulk were unkillable. They were supposed to stronger than any of the rest of them.

For the first time she knew what hyperventilating felt like because she was positive she was doing it as her vision blurred and _that_ was even more foreign. It wasn't like that one single tear that escaped when he said he loved her and then left her in the rock formation. It was like the dam cracked as several marked their way down her face and she had no idea how to make it stop.

"Natasha—"

"No...no, no, no..." she murmured the words out as her hands shook, ignoring Tony's call of her name. "You can't do this—you can't..." she mumbled out, "you can't leave me..."

"Nat—" A hand clasped down on her shoulder and she turned, pushing Steve away from her in an instant. The look she gave him made him take a few steps back on his own and she wasn't sure if it was the emotion clearly displayed on her face or if she had actually given him a dirty and threatening look. No matter which it was, he looked almost horrified by whatever was on her facial expression as she looked at him.

She looked back down at Bruce and suddenly she didn't know if she was sad or angry. She couldn't focus on how she was supposed to feel because she didn't _know_ how she was supposed to feel.

The anger stuck out most.

"Wake up..." Natasha tried again, shaking Bruce's shoulders to no avail. "Wake up," and she knew desperation when she heard it but she couldn't seem to make herself stop when she hit his chest with her fist, "dammit, Bruce! Get up!" She knew she had lost it completely when she hit him again and again and again, "come back...come back!"

"Natasha, Natasha stop!" it was Tony again and she fought tooth and nail when his arms hooked under hers, arms encased in metal armor.

He was pulling her away and while in some ways she wanted to shoot him, in other ways she was grateful, but her mind just couldn't comprehend the difference in those opinions. "Let go! Let go of me!" she growled out but Steve had gotten a hold of her too and she couldn't get free from the both of them. "No, no, no! It's not fair! It's not fair!" she cried out, "I didn't know...I didn't know and I didn't tell him!"

"Nat..." Tony's voice was soft—too soft—it was a tone that broke her completely and she went down to the ground in an instant with him following, metal arms still awkwardly encased around her.

"I—I—I..." and never in her life had she ever felt or lost control the way she had in this moment. He had her head resting against his shoulder with one hand around her and the other around the back of her head and she couldn't remember how to breathe. "I—I didn't tell him..." she mumbled it out again, "I didn't understand..."

He was quiet but he didn't let go for a moment and it only pushed her further in ruins.

"I love him and—" it came out so quiet she wasn't sure if he even heard and then the tears fell again, "—and I didn't—I didn't understand it..."

It felt like ages of silence ensued before she knew why Tony wasn't speaking and only then it was because she heard his breath hitch.

She turned her attention to where his eyes were locked into place and she sucked in her own breath when she saw Bruce with his eyes open. The relief she felt was such a blow to the gut that it actually hurt.

"Natasha, he's alive..."

He was alive.

And she had just told every single person how she felt about him.

The sheer exhaustion of knowing he was alive and all of the emotion having splayed out against her will made everything spin in circles and the last thing she remembered was Tony saying her name, trying to snap her back to reality, but she couldn't find her way back.

She was just so damned tired.

* * *

 **So, I'm taking this moment to announce...**

 **Due to high demand this is going to become a trilogy.**

 **There will be ONE more story following this one with a plot that has already been laid out and has been cemented by certain developments in this story. But I'm not letting you whackadoodles to convince me to write a fourth. The third story will be the last, lmao.**


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 14** :

" _Tell them this love hasn't changed me at all,  
Stick your heart inside of my chest,  
Keep it warm here while we rest."_

Stasia Balshovic watched the entirety of the fight that ensued through Nikolao Constantin's eye. She had to admit to a certain amount of fascination when Natasha took Betty and ran from the beast; an even larger amount of interest when they ran a second time as The Hulk stood as a distraction.

Natasha was programmed never to fear and yet undiluted terror had been in her eyes when she first saw Nikolao.

Everything about Natasha was different than what she had expected to find after a dozen years.

 _Natalia_ had been the epitome of perfection. She never wavered, she never lost, she never broke. She was marble, made of indestructible stone. She would have left Betty behind without hesitation, and not just left her behind, but she likely would have injured the woman to guarantee a distraction as a means of her escape.

Yet Natasha protected the woman as though Betty's life was of some importance to her.

It seemed she had evolved not just from the program but also in ways that should have been impossible. Emotions, feelings; they were things that she herself programmed out of Natasha and yet they were ever present, clear as day over her face unlike when she had been held here in the facility. Though even then there had been the smallest of signs. Her eyes used to be hollow, void of anything and everything, yet now they seemed to be a window into her very core.

Though she supposed that to most others, they still would have seen nothing behind Natasha's eyes, it _was_ rather well hidden to anyone who hadn't previously known her; Stasia could see it the moment that Natasha tried impede Nikolao from attacking The Hulk and the moment where Niko initially grabbed her. She had a look of utter horror and pain on her face, a look Stasia hadn't seen on her since she was a child.

Even though she knew now that the serum was of no use to her, that it held no clear indication of being the bond that Natasha had formed with The Hulk, Stasia was still intrigued to have seen just how far the two were willing to go for each other.

Bruce Banner had impressed her.

The resolve it had to have taken to transform back and forth as many times as he had in such a short span, and to do it all for the sake of love, it was almost fascinating. The man refused to stand down even when it should have been physically impossible for him to get back up.

Yet he did.

Again and again.

Even when he couldn't force any green onto himself he stood.

Where she thought that love would be a weakness, it instead only seemed to strengthen his resolve to keep Natasha alive, no matter the cost to himself.

It wasn't that she didn't believe someone could love Natasha; love was something that Natasha was implicitly crafted to obtain, to draw the desire out of men with little to no effort and use it for her own benefit.

She twirled the silvery metallic vial around in her fingertips, the very one that one of those idiots injected into Natasha. Stasia quirked her eyebrow up as she studied it.

Natasha surprised her most of all, especially during her hallucinations.

She remembered the moment clearly as Natasha woke up in that chair and spoke to the one man who had tried to bring some semblance of humanity back into the child-sized weapon.

 _A few hours earlier..._

 _Stasia stood with her arms crossed, her face a blank canvas as the redhead slowly blinked herself into awareness. She almost opened her own mouth to speak when Natasha looked at the air beside her as though someone were there._

" _Ivan...?"_

 _She raised both her eyebrows ever so slightly. Ivan Petrovich had been Natasha's handler from four years old until she was eleven, when Stasia realized that the man had grown attached to Natasha, when she realized he had made a plan to try and take her and run._

" _It is Kseniya. Ivan, I killed her."_

 _Stasia tilted her head to the side slightly._

" _But I earned my own room. I prefer it that way. I should feel bad but—but instead I just feel that she is lucky."_

 _She was surprised to hear those words. She remembered that day clearly. The ten year old hadn't even hesitated to snap the neck of the older girl, she showed no sign that Kseniya's life had been of any significance and now Stasia understood why._

" _She is free and I am not."_

 _Ivan's sudden fatherly instinct towards the ten year old suddenly became more clear with Natasha's next words._

" _Ivan...do you think that I will ever be free?"_

 _The scrawny redheaded child-sized machine had struck a deep cord in the man in that moment, with that one single question, or she believed that was likely the moment if Stasia had to hazard a guess. She should have known better then to trust that the man could be little Natalia's handler when she had told him to take the four-year-old from their burning home. That child drew something out of every single person that she came across without ever trying to. It was what made her the best._

Stasia remembered killing Ivan herself for his betrayal. Allowing the eleven-year-old to believe that she had been abandoned, telling her that nobody would ever stay, that everybody would always leave.

" _Everybody leaves, Natalia. Everybody. You can make them feel for you in every possible way but eventually they'll get over it. Eventually they'll leave you."_

Yet in the end against Niko, the emotions on her face had been clear as day, the desperation that came to her voice was raw and Stasia recognized it as truth rather than fiction.

People didn't go to those levels for just anyone.

You didn't offer your own life as a bargaining chip for someone you didn't care for, certainly not to a man who understood all your fears, who _knew_ all your fears.

Stasia could see it in Natasha from the start. At first it was lies she was feeding him, she had taught her to tell those lies after all, but at some point the redhead realized that it needed to be the truth if she was going to save Bruce's life. Even Stasia truly believed that Natasha would have left with him if things hadn't gone sour, if Bruce Banner hadn't continued to get up to try and stop them.

It had been the moment she had watched Iron Man snatch Natasha from sudden death when Stasia knew it was time to leave. When she knew that there was no salvaging any of this.

She twirled that little metal vial around one more time in her fingertips before she placed it down in the control room and walked out.

It was all but useless to her at this point anyways.

She continued to watch the feed on the tablet as she was driven through the underground escape tunnel to the helicopter.

She even swore it felt almost like pride when she watched Natasha give orders to the little witch, the young brunette taking orders from her without hesitation, and then to watch as Natasha took the knife to her camera caused one corner of her lips quirk upward into a smirk.

"Very impressive, Natasha..."

Natasha hadn't simply become an Avenger, or rather, not an Avenger just in name. She had adopted the very meaning of it. She found her place in a world that should have never accepted her for who and what she was, and she had broken her programming in nearly every possible way.

"Initiate system wipe."

* * *

Wanda waited patiently as Tony, Sam and Rhodey flew the three up to the awaiting Quinjet. She took her ride with Vision to the jet while Steve waited down below in preparation to check the facility.

She honestly felt a little wary being the one chosen for guard duty given that one of the three almost certainly hated her. She hadn't forgotten when Bruce Banner told her he could choke the life out of her and never change a shade and though she didn't entirely blame him for it, it didn't mean that she was thrilled to be left in a confined space with him either.

It still surprised her just how easily Steve and Natasha had put it aside. She understood that Steve didn't seem to hold anything against anyone, the man was just too inherently good, but she had expected more anger or hate from the redhead whose nightmares reeked of horror stories that one wouldn't even tell their children to deter them from bad deeds. While Natasha wasn't all that friendly most days, Wanda had realized quickly enough that the disinterested attitude wasn't towards just herself but towards mostly everyone, and Steve had informed her not to take it to heart.

Wanda also understood just why Natasha was that way after today. Everything the redheaded co-leader of the Avengers felt today had been overwhelmingly powerful and Wanda realized that it wasn't that Natasha had never been disinterested in people; the other woman merely didn't exhibit emotions the way the others did and when she felt things like _love_ she didn't quite understand what it was.

She had felt the moment where Natasha had wanted rather badly for Wanda to be able to tell her if what she was feeling was love or not and she just wished the redhead hadn't needed to figure it out the way that she had. The emotional pain had physically hurt even for Wanda and as she took a seat by Natasha's side, she stared down at the woman who was both emotionally and physically battered.

"Wanda."

She glanced up at Tony as Vision, Sam and Rhodey all flew back out of the quinjet.

"You sure you don't want one of us to stay with you?" came his question.

It seemed like a rather cautious tone for Tony Stark to use, especially with her, but she let it go and shook her head. "I'll be fine," she assured him. She watched his eyes shift to Bruce and she understood his worry was more for the scientist waking again and finding only Wanda with them. "He's not waking anytime soon," she told him next, "he's deep in sleep, an uncomfortable sleep, but deep in sleep nonetheless."

It was almost amusing to see the billionaire's brow wrinkle in frustration that she _knew_ that before he seemed to relent. Tony gave a half nod and somewhat of an indifferent shrug before he spoke, "Right...well, carry on, Little Red." She had just glanced away when he spoke again, "And Wanda?"

"Yes?" she questioned.

"You did—you know—really good back there." Wanda quirked an eyebrow up at how uncomfortable he looked giving the compliment and then he explained himself, "Natasha literally trusted you with her life back there and you didn't let her down no matter how much it took out of you."

She supposed Natasha's trust alone was a huge compliment but she also didn't know Tony Stark to hand out compliments—ever. She still wasn't all that fond of him but if the others could set aside their differences with her then Wanda supposed she could make the same attempt here and now with him, "She trusts you as well."

There was a half chuckle of discomfort from the man. "Scary, right?" he questioned, "I wouldn't put too much stock into that though given that almost every woman I've come across has cried on my shoulder at some point."

Wanda rolled her eyes as he stepped out of the flying quinjet with those parting words.

She glanced back at Natasha as the redhead's forehead beaded with sweat and she placed the back of her own hand on Natasha's face. She was burning up and Wanda didn't hesitate to stand and open up one of the kits. She gripped the cold compress before she took her place back beside Natasha and placed it on her forehead.

Wanda had seen the redhead in a few somewhat compromising circumstances over a six month period but all of them paled in comparison to what they came across today. Even in their unconscious states all three were exuding overwhelming amounts of pain, even the brunette woman whom was unknown to Wanda was giving off vibes of emotional horror.

She shifted her gaze to Bruce Banner and the way the poor man was a shivering and quaking mess. His skin was still white as a ghost, bruises the shape of enlarged fingers and palms encased his arms, chest, and back. Her heart ached for all of them as she opened a container and removed a blanket, draping it over the poor man.

"W—where..."

Wanda turned and looked at the woman who Natasha had been so intent on helping down in the jungle. She was sitting up and looking a mix between terrified and confused. "You're alright," she assured the woman as she finished settling the blanket over Bruce, "I'm sorry, I don't actually know your name."

"Betty..." The woman still looked wary and Wanda supposed she couldn't blame her. Still, once Betty studied her briefly, a small amount of recognition seemed to reflect over her features. "You're...one of the Avengers," the brunette mentioned next.

"Wanda," she told Betty with a smile as she opened up the first aid kit. She pulled out the rubbing alcohol and cotton swabs before she moved to sit next to Betty. "You've got a pretty nasty cut," she told her.

Betty reached her hand up to her forehead and Wanda grimaced a little when the poor woman winced and removed her now bloodied fingertips. "So...this—this is over right?" came her question as Wanda dabbed the cotton swab over the cut.

"You're safe," Wanda assured her. Even as she dabbed the cotton swab on Betty's forehead the brunette looked like she was haunted as she looked around the jet.

She saw Betty's eyes shift from Bruce to Natasha, then it was as though some revelation came to her as she starting patting her clothing like she was looking for something, "Oh no..."

Wanda frowned slightly, "What's the matter?"

"They injected her with something," Betty explained, "I—I lost the syringe."

Wanda's eyes softened in an instant but that thought left her worried. It explained Natasha's fever and she looked over at the redhead, "What was in it?"

Betty shook her head, "I—I don't know, they didn't seem to know what it was either."

She was looking warily at Natasha now and Wanda knew there was more to it, "What did it do?"

"She's been hallucinating," Betty explained quietly, "I don't know what she's been seeing but—but each time she seems to get further and further lost in them." The brunette rubbed at her eyes as though it might end the nightmare that had occurred and when she finally realized that she was trapped in this reality she spoke again, "She needs a doctor."

Wanda could only nod her head, "It won't be long. The others are just checking the facility."

"That woman, what will they do with her?"

"Woman?" Wanda questioned as her brow furrowed, "what woman?"

"Her name is Stasia, Stasia Balso—something...she was Russian," Betty answered quickly, "you guys didn't know about her?"

Wanda frowned in an instant, "No. The threats we were aware of were Nikolao Constantin, Hydra and General Ross."

She saw the way Betty cringed at the mention of Ross. The brunette's mouth went a little dry, the horror crept back into her expression, but Betty avidly ignored her own telltale signs. "She um—vich. It was Balsovich..." she answered quietly, "she was behind all of this."

Wanda narrowed her eyes at the statement and listened as her ear piece came to life.

" _Think we're pretty much clear here. Constantin is down, Ross is down...I'll have to send my condolences over to Betty on that one. Her father's a dick, but you know—still has to suck._ " Wanda sucked in a breath at that." _Whoever Natasha didn't kill in this slaughter house has been contained in what I'm assuming was their version of the Hulk cell. We'll tie a nice bow on the package for SHIELD and we can get the hell out of here once we've checked the computer systems,_ " came Tony's voice.

She activated the ear bud on her end and spoke, "Did you get a woman named Stasia Balsovich?"

" _Didn't exactly take role call, Little Red._ "

Wanda rolled her eyes.

Steve's voice came through next, " _What's she look like?"_

Wanda turned to Betty, "What did she look like?"

"Blonde in really tight bun, graying a little. Blue eyes... maybe five-six. Probably early sixties... She's—she's cold as anything. Little hard to miss her..."

"You guys get that?"

" _Yeah. Anybody see this woman?_ " Steve questioned.

A clear cut bunch of negatives followed and Wanda frowned.

" _Who is she?_ " Tony asked next.

"Apparently she's the one who organized all of this," Wanda answered.

* * *

"Peachy. We lost a criminal mastermind that we didn't know existed," Tony mumbled out over the comms as he flew through the compound.

It was a lot like flying through the aftermath of some macabre dance of death. He knew Natasha was the obvious culprit for all of the dead bodies. Dozens of men were dead in a variation of different ways.

Bullet wounds. Knife wounds. Snapped necks.

There was never just _one_ body. Where there was one there tended to be more than he could count on one hand.

Finally he made it into the control room and he eased from flying and back onto his feet.

"Boss, my sensors are picking up traces of Miss Romanoff's blood on the metal vial straight ahead," came Friday's sudden intrusion.

He followed Friday's indicators on the screen of his face mask and found the aforementioned vial. He lifted it up and watched the computer of his mask run it's own diagnosis on it. "What the hell is it?" he finally questioned.

"It appears to be a sort of electronic injector, boss. The button on one end is pressed and when the container pressurizes, macro bristles and micro needles are released from the opposite end and the contents of the vial are released."

Tony scrunched up his nose, "And this, whatever it was, was used on Natasha?"

"According to her DNA on the bristles, yes."

"Well, this just keeps getting better and better," Tony mumbled out as he released his face mask and glanced around the control room.

He tapped his fingers across the keyboard and easily got into their systems.

Nothing.

Tony felt his brow furrow as each video feed, folder or data bank he tried to access came up with one thing:

 **Error** : **No Data Found**

Somebody knew what they were doing. Normally even a full system wipe would leave behind some electronic footprints, something for him to reach in and pluck out, and yet no matter how deep he dug he found nothing.

"Anything?" came Steve's voice behind him.

"No," Tony admitted before he held up the metal vial, "nothing besides this."

Steve came up beside him and took the vial, studying it himself with confusion, "What is it?"

Again he was forced to give an answer that he didn't want to give, "I have no idea—not yet anyways." He sighed and rubbed at his face for a moment, "They managed to kidnap the Black Widow, The Hulk and then make their own Hulk...and there's nothing. We have absolutely nothing."

"But now _we_ have Nat, we have Banner, and their Hulk is gone," Steve reminded him, "we have everything and they have nothing, Tony. I consider that a win."

Tony shook his head slightly and stared at the error on the computer screen before him as he spoke, "Is it really a win? I mean—we got them back, yeah...but Bruce was dead—not dead now but he was, and Romanoff—she..."

"Snapped..." Steve finished.

Tony supposed that was an accurate enough statement. "I wanna know what the hell happened here and why," he grumbled out as he shoved the computer monitor to the floor. The screen shattered, the plastic of the monitor breaking apart and skirting across the ground. "What the hell was worth all of this?"

"Nat and Banner will be able to tell us, Tony."

"It's not the same," Tony told him. "The science, the facts, the data—that's what I need, that's what makes sense," he explained, "but Romanoff in tears? Bruce dying? That—that doesn't make sense."

"Love doesn't always make sense," Steve reminded him, "and no offense but those two didn't make a whole lot of sense before there was a 'those two'."

Tony snorted out a laugh but it didn't make him feel much better. He understood the horror that Natasha had been feeling in that moment where they thought Bruce was dead and gone. Bruce was his best friend and more or less one of the few people he had ever considered a friend besides Rhodey. Sure, he relented to the fact that the Avengers were friends as well but it was a different sort of friendship with them than it was with Bruce.

If he was being honest with himself then he wasn't sure if he and Natasha would have ever seen eye to eye if it weren't for Bruce. Tony himself hadn't much liked her and he knew for a fact she had never been all too fond of him. He thought she was cold and unfeeling, she thought he was self-endangering narcissist and until Bruce stood between them as a buffer they hadn't had a single thing in common.

He wasn't sure he could have handled losing his best friend for real. He wasn't sure what he would have done if he'd had more than a few minutes to process the entire scenario before Bruce was back and breathing. He might have lost it himself if he hadn't been so distracted by the fact that Natasha had completely broken down.

And Tony found himself wondering if Bruce even heard Natasha's admittance of love. She had said it so quietly that Tony himself almost hadn't heard what she said.

"So...you heard her say that?" Tony questioned.

"Super serum," Steve pointed out as he motioned to his ear.

Right. Tony was sure he would have thought of that if the circumstances hadn't been so distracting. "Think she'll tell him?" he questioned.

"I wish I knew," Steve answered with a sigh, "but I've honestly never known what to expect from her."

He glanced over at the supersoldier and sighed because it was true. Natasha was nothing if not a riddle wrapped up in an enigma and wrapped then wrapped up in a burrito. Or was that supposed to be a mystery?

"You know that if it weren't for you then they would both be dead right now, Tony. Normally I'd say your obsessiveness is a bad thing but in this case—in this case they're alive because of all the weird techno-stuff that you've made. Satellite threat systems, satellite tracking systems, giant suits of armor that drop from the sky—" and then Steve gave him a pointed look, "hacking SHIELD."

Tony chuckled.

"We should have never been able to find them here but we did," Steve pointed out, "so yeah—it's a win."

" _Guys, we got a huge problem._ "

That was just about the last thing that Tony wanted to hear and he sighed at Sam's words over the comms as Steve handed the metal vial back to him. He tucked it safely into one of his suit's compartments to deal with it later; it was the only viable thing he had found after all.

"Where's the problem?" he heard Steve question.

" _The cell where we put all the Hydra agents_."

That didn't sound good.

Tony followed Steve there and he narrowed his eyes as they both joined Rhodey, Vision and Sam at the see-through wall that looked into the giant cell. Instead of men tied up and writhing around for freedom, there were merely dozens of bodies laying around and foaming from the mouth.

"Son of a bitch..." Tony mumbled out.

"Should've seen that coming..." was Steve's only comment as the man shook his head.

"So this is how they make sure nobody gives away any of the details, eh?" Sam questioned, "that's sick."

Rhodey was shaking his head, "That's a twisted kind of loyalty."

Tony rubbed at his eyes, "Yeah...hail friggin Hydra. Let's go with the sooner rather than later option of getting out of here. No computer data, no video feed, now no witnesses. There's no reason to stay here and wait for SHIELD to show. We send SHIELD an update and we get our people home."

Nobody seemed to disagree and Tony was grateful to find himself back on the quinjet just a little while later. His best friend was still a pale and unconscious shivering mess, though now covered with a few blankets, and Natasha's face was colored from fever and beading with sweat. They were two polar opposites in the aftermath of disaster just like they were in reality.

"Tony, we don't know what's wrong with her," Wanda admitted, "Betty says she was injected with something but nobody in the facility seemed to know what it was. The syringe was lost..."

Tony pulled the metal vial from the compartment in his suit, "This syringe?"

Betty's stunned words hit him first, "You found it!"

"You're telling me nobody had a clue what was in this thing?" Tony questioned as he held it up.

"No," Betty answered. "I mean I think—I think my father did..." she answered next, "but—but..."

Tony released a deep breath at that before he clamped a hand over Betty's shoulder, "We'll figure it out."

"He—he was going to kill her..."

Tony narrowed his eyes slightly at Betty's words and he studied the woman for a moment. He shifted his eyes from Betty, to Natasha, and then back to Betty. Her comment hit him like a sack of bricks in that instant and he released a sharper breath, "You shot him?"

She gave the smallest nod, "I had to..."

That was about the last thing he expected to hear. He had assumed that it was Natasha, or hell, maybe even Bruce...but Betty—he hadn't expected that.

"I'm really sorry, that couldn't have been easy..." Steve tacked on after a few seconds when Tony couldn't seem to find the words. "Betty...you mentioned a woman—what did this woman want?" Steve dared to ask after a few uncomfortable moments of silence.

The brunette looked thoughtful for a moment before she spoke, "She seemed to think that the connection between The Hulk and Natasha was in her serum because the serum was in Bruce's lab during the explosion that made—made The Hulk."

Vision piped up, "It would stand to reason that if both Doctor Banner and Natasha had the exact same serum that there might be some sort of connection or bond formed because of it if The Hulk were to sense it."

"Yeah...that's what she seemed to have thought anyway," Betty answered, "and I don't really know if she was right or wrong. I mean he didn't flatten me in the jungle when Natasha was unconscious.

He chuckled, "Yeah the Big Guy saved my life once too but I'm pretty sure he still looks at me like he wants to swat me like a fly anyways."

Betty had the smallest smile on her lips at his comment before she spoke again, "But I think that's why she made the other Hulk. She was testing the theory."

Sam said exactly what Tony himself was thinking in that moment, "Well that plan backfired pretty spectacularly because he was about half a second away from killing her when we showed up."

There was a few moments of silence before Wanda broke it, "So you helped them escape."

"They didn't deserve this..." Betty told them. "When they first carried her in I thought that they were saving her life," she admitted, "they gave her the anti-toxin but—but then they threw her in a cage."

Tony frowned in an instant, "The anti-toxin?"

Betty nodded, "Yeah, she was almost dead when they brought her in. These...sickly looking black veins all the way up her face. I thought they were saving her for the sake of saving her—not to—not to torture them both."

Tony sighed at her comment, "That's not your fault, Betty."

"They both said the same thing but that doesn't make what happened any easier..." she said with a sad little chuckle. Tony watched as she looked between the two, "They're going to be okay, right?"

Tony nodded, "We'll figure it out."

"Well, if you need any help with that—I could use the distraction."

Tony didn't doubt that for a moment, "We'll take all the help we can get."

"Stark, uh—Bruce is sort of awake and he's looking a little green at the gills here," came Sam's sudden interruption.

Tony turned to look at Bruce and sure enough the man finally had a little color back to his skin, it just wasn't a color that any of them were all too thrilled to see. He shifted his gaze to Natasha who was still out cold before he settled himself down to sit next to Bruce. The man's eyes were open and pained and hinted with speckles of green and he placed a metal hand down on his shoulder. "Hey buddy," Tony commented quickly. "Just a small, teeny tiny, microscopic request here," he mentioned as though it were of no real importance, "I know your stellar other half wants to come out because you're in a lot of pain, but Bruceyboy I need you to try and suck that down for a bit."

He watched Bruce's eyes rapidly search the inside of the jet before the pained voice met Tony's ears, "Nat?"

Tony shifted his own body out of the way and pointed over to where Natasha was, "She's fine. She's just sleeping so try not to bust up the jet, alright? I mean I'm a phenomenally good looking man but I don't think I've got Natasha's rather astronomical good looks to go pulling off a lullaby with your big green love machine."

It worked because Bruce released a rather painful sounding laugh.

"We're going home buddy," Tony assured him as he gave Bruce's shoulder a light squeeze.

* * *

 **Yeah, probably drove you nuts that I didn't add any Bruce/Natasha scene in here. Don't worry. There's going to be plenty of that coming up :)**

 **Almost to the end so we can start up the final installation of this series! (Admittedly I got highly distracted outlining that story which is why it took me so long to post this chapter.)**


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 15** :

" _And I know that you're worth it  
and I know this could work if  
I could only let you in."_

The next time Bruce came to since that once in the quinjet, at least that he could recall, he found himself in a bed and covered with a blanket. He could hear the beeping of a monitor and he opened his eyes, glancing towards the monitor and then the white sticky nodes on his chest feeding his heart rate to the machine. Once he got over his fascination with those he remembered to look around at his surroundings, feeling his brow furrow when he realized there was a pair of boots kicked up on a tiny table beside him. He shifted his gaze from the feet to the person that they belonged to and was surprised to find who their owner actually was.

Clint Barton sat in the chair beside his bed, arms crossed over his chest, and the man was currently studying Bruce himself. It was a little strange in and of itself that Clint was in _his_ room but it was equally as odd to see the archer wearing a plaid button up shirt and a pair of jeans.

Retirement looked odd on him.

"Hey, Doc."

Bruce frowned slightly at the realization of why Clint would be sitting here and not by someone else's side. "Tony said she was okay..." he stated worriedly.

Those arms uncrossed and Clint's feet found their way to the floor as the man sat up, leaned forward, and rested his arms on his knees as he spoke, "She is, sort of. I mean there was a time when bad shit happened like this and I was the one she needed."

Bruce found his frown growing slightly at Clint's words but he didn't interrupt him.

"Somewhere along the line that changed," Clint informed him with a look that said he was none too thrilled to have found that out. "I'm not the one she needs anymore," he explained, "you are."

It wasn't what he expected to hear the other man say and Bruce glanced around again before his eyes landed back on the concerned archer, "How long have I been out?"

"Two days," Clint answered, "sort of anyways, you've been in and out. Probably best cause I doubt you were gonna hold your bladder that long and I don't really wanna imagine what The Hulk would do about a catheter."

Bruce chuckled before he asked the only other question his mind could think to ask, "What's wrong with her?"

Clint's look of concern was a lot more intense now, "Stark called me when you guy were flying back so I made my way here. The fever she had hasn't gone away. Stark's basically locked himself in the lab trying to figure out what they did to her and he only comes out to jab a needle in her arm and take some blood. I've seen her swat people for less but she's not even batting an eye, and well, I can't even get her to look at me let alone talk to me." The man was rubbing at his eyes in a clear sign of frustration before he sighed and finished speaking, "She's not eating or sleeping and when she does look it me it's more like she's looking right through me."

Everything hurt as Bruce tried to move and that was something that he wasn't used to, not on this level anyway. It felt like he had been hit by one rather large freight train and though he supposed that the Other Guy would normally have taken care of that but instead he was unusually silent, not so much as a grumble, and Bruce gave a sigh as he pulled the bothersome sticky nodes off his chest. The monitor did one long and unending flatline beep before he smacked the button on it to turn it off.

Before he even had to ask, Clint was holding a white t-shirt out to him and Bruce took it without hesitation. He pulled it on over his head before he fully sat up. He swore everything creaked as he shifted his legs over the side of the bed and then he looked back at the archer who was patiently waiting.

"Where is she?" Bruce finally dared to ask.

"I'll show you." Clint stood up and Bruce was a little glad when the other man pretended not to notice how long it took Bruce himself to follow suit. "Hey, Banner?" came Clint's uncertain voice.

Bruce followed him out into the hall, "Yeah?"

"You went through hell and back for Nat," Clint mentioned and Bruce shifted a little uncomfortably as they walked down the hallway, "so I may be a little grumpy that my best friend doesn't seem to need me anymore but I am glad that the person she needs now is you."

Bruce was almost too stunned to respond to that but he managed, "You're her best friend, Barton. She always needs you."

Clint grinned at him for that comment and Bruce supposed it was the right thing to say as they stopped walking and the other man motioned into a room. "Not this time, Doc," Clint admitted with a tinge of regret in his voice, "this time I'm pretty sure she needs you."

Bruce glanced through the glass pane window on the door and saw the redhead they were talking about. She was laying on her side, eyes open with a glassy look, and she was staring at nothing in particular. He stood there in silence for a moment and looked through but she never moved, never blinked. "She's been like this the whole time?" he dared to ask.

"Yeah..."

He put his hand on the door handle and only stopped when Clint's hand gripped his upper arm. "Before you go in there, Doc...you should know something," he mentioned.

Bruce wasn't all that sure he liked where this was going and he turned to look at Clint in an instant.

"Nat thought you were—you know...dead," Clint explained, "and Tony said she sort of lost it."

"Lost it?" Bruce questioned in confusion.

"Kind of a melt down of sorts..." Clint explained next, "because you really were—dead I mean."

That threw him even more for a loop because Bruce hadn't even thought that it was a possibility. "I was dead?" he questioned.

"No pulse, not breathing, dead-dead," Clint answered.

There was a time when he would have been thrilled to hear that, when he would have been glad to know there _was_ some way for that to happen, but when he looked back through the small window on the door at Natasha he couldn't evoke that feeling now. "Right, that kind of dead..." he mumbled out. Now he wasn't all that sure how he felt about the near death experience, even if he didn't quite know that it happened until this very moment.

"I just, you know, I thought you should know," Clint added with a concerned look before the archer released his arm.

Bruce could only think to nod before he pulled the handle to Natasha's room on the medical floor and pushed the door open. She didn't react in any way to the intrusion and he hesitated for a moment before he stepped inside. He was almost surprised when Clint didn't follow him and instead the other man closed the door after him and stayed outside.

He found himself alone with Natasha for the first time in what felt like ages, or at least alone with her without a threat looming just over the horizon, and it was a remarkable relief to him.

Or it was for just a brief moment.

Natasha still had the slight discoloration on her cheekbone where a bruise had formed and started to heal, a few visible cuts that were lightly faded, and the dark circles under her eyes told him what Clint already had.

She was exhausted.

Bruce seated himself in the chair that Clint had obviously set up for himself beside Natasha's bed and he watched her carefully for a moment as he tried to figure out what to do or what to say. Clint wasn't wrong, it was almost as though she couldn't even see him, like he didn't exist.

"Natasha?" he finally questioned softly.

Nothing.

She didn't blink, she didn't so much as shift her pinky finger.

Bruce shifted his eye to the monitor by her bed, the steady heart rate and the body temperature that was far too high. Her usually pale complexion looked like it had a case of heat stroke and he rested his hand on her cheek, frowning at the heat that radiated off of her skin before he even made contact.

That was when he saw her eyes shift to look at him. It wasn't much but it was something and he gave her the smallest smile as she stared right at him. "Hey..." he offered up softly.

Natasha looked almost confused as she blinked and studied him further and Bruce almost didn't understand why, not until he remembered back to the facility where she had been gripping his arm during their entire escape, trying to ground herself to reality during hallucinations. Finally he moved his other hand to hers and interlocked their fingers before he met her eyes again.

Fierce green eyes were studying him much more intensely now but she still never said a word. "I'm real..." he assured her.

He saw the vacancy seeping back into her eyes as they drifted off of him and he did the only other thing that he could think to do. He moved himself to the opposite side of the tiny bed and climbed in behind her, shifting his free arm under her to pull her closer and leaving his hand that was still holding hers draped over top of her.

"I'm real," he told her again.

It had some effect because Natasha released a shuttering little breath before her hand squeezed his own a little tighter. "I know..." her voice sounded hoarse and Bruce tightened his arms around her.

Moments of everything that occurred back in Sri Lanka started coming back in little fragmented bits and pieces and left him more than a little confused as he tried to piece it back together.

 _Feeling that slight impact. He, or rather the Other Guy, opening his eyes to see that Natasha was the impact and that she had landed on him. The worry and fear was in her eyes, not fear of him but rather fear for him._

Everything else came back more fragmented. Little seconds long intervals that only semi told him the story.

 _Large grayish hands gripping Natasha._

 _The redhead being thrown away from him._

 _Grabbing the falling tree and plucking her out from beneath it._

 _Then Niko's beast getting ahold of Natasha again._

Bruce frowned as he tried to piece the fragmented memories together as more than just one or two second scenes, ones from the Other Guy and a few from his own memory.

" _I can be yours...but only if you don't kill him."_

" _Bruce! Bruce, no!"_

He only snapped out of it when Natasha's hand unclasped from his. A moment later he found a pair of concerned eyes staring into his own. Natasha had turned over so that they were facing one another and he rested his head on top of hers when she moved to lay her own under his chin.

Bruce didn't quite know what to say to her and it seemed she didn't either because they laid there like that in silence. Her breaths came in warm and steady little puffs on his neck and he couldn't even begin to explain the relief that filled him as he held onto her. It was a lot like finding a lifeline to hold onto again and Bruce slowly felt Natasha relaxing, her body getting less stiff as they laid there.

The smallest of noises came from her and Bruce almost laughed a little in surprise when he realized that she was snoring, albeit it was the quietest he'd ever heard a person snore. Admittedly they'd spent more time apart than they ever had together, something that threw him off given how strongly he actually felt about Natasha, but he didn't remember her _ever_ snoring.

After being told he already slept on and off for two days Bruce would be damned by how easily he found his eyes drooping again now, how easily he drifted off again into the land of unconscious, especially given how small the bed actually was.

He wasn't even sure how much time passed when an elongated and never ending beeping noise roused him. His heart plummeted for a moment when he realized it was the heart monitor before he also realized he was alone in the bed, those same white sticky nodes that he had shed from himself in his room scattered on the floor.

Bruce sat up and slowly took in the room, searching it quickly with his eyes for a sign of Natasha. It wasn't exactly a large room and it didn't take him long to notice the heat and steam from the bathroom. He also wasn't surprised to see that the door was left open. He could see her standing in the bathroom with her fingertips gripped around the edge of the sink as she stared into a mirror.

He only hesitated another moment to stand up and move towards the bathroom. He didn't intrude on her completely, standing just in the doorway and leaning against the frame. Her hair was wet, her skin was still damp, and the only thing keeping his heart from jumping out of his chest was a rather pathetic looking white towel that she had wrapped around herself.

His eyes drifted to the floor where she had discarded her own white shirt, pale blue scrub pants, and a rather numerous amount of bandages. Bruce found himself grimacing when his eyes landed back on her arms and bare back that wasn't hidden by the towel. She was a mottled mess of bruising, even more so than himself, and suddenly his own bruising hurt a hell of a lot less. Greens, yellows, deep purples and blues were all a jumbled abstract work of art across her skin. He hadn't seen any of it before when she'd been covered, at least not to this extent, and he wished more than once now that he had just never left in the first place.

Maybe he could have done _something_ to avoid all of this.

"You know...sometimes it's like looking at a stranger," came Natasha's sudden vocal intrusion into his thoughts, "like my life is somebody else's."

Bruce had to admit that he had looked into a mirror and felt that same way far too many times to count. He also hadn't realized she knew that he was here, though he supposed it shouldn't really have surprised him.

She was quiet again for a moment, still staring into the mirror before her voice met his ears once again, "I'm not supposed to be this person."

"What person?" he finally found himself daring to ask.

"This one," she answered as though it were the most obvious answer in the world. "I was taught for most of my life that the people who come into your life will just walk right back out when it suites them," she informed him next.

He remembered what she told him eight months ago almost as though it were yesterday.

" _Everybody leaves, Bruce. Eventually you will too, so if you want to do it now then I won't stop you. This, us, whatever we are...I can pretend it never happened."_

Finally she turned her head and looked at him and Bruce could see the utter confusion displayed over her features, her hands still gripping the porcelain edges of the sink tightly, and her words came out equally uncertain, "Why did you come back?"

It hit him in that moment that though they had 'talked' about it in India, they had never had time to _really_ talk about it. They never had a chance to just stop and breathe. Despite all they did for each other under Ross, Stasia and Hydra's thumb—all of that had shoved everything else between them so far down to the realm of non-importance that the only thing they were able to see was each other.

And now he felt like they were right back where they started.

"I thought I could be alone again," he finally admitted after a few seconds of uncomfortable silence between them. "I used to like being alone..." he tacked on with a shake of his head as he looked at the floor, "of course then Tony had to go and—and you know, be Tony." He thought he saw the smallest hint of a smile form at one corner of her lips at his words so he continued, "And then—then there was you." Natasha's eyes were watching him with caution in a way that he had never seen her do before. It felt like she was scrutinizing his every word, his every move, and it made his mouth a little dry as he finally gave the true answer behind his initial return to the tower, "The truth is I don't know how to be alone anymore...and I don't want to be."

After a few seconds her eyes lost their studious gaze and softened before she turned her gaze back on herself in the mirror. "Me either..." came her unexpected admittance. "See this person I keep looking at?" she offered up next.

Bruce found himself walking into the tiny bathroom and standing behind her, glancing at the same reflection she was.

"I know it's me—I do," she assured him, "but I keep seeing things...hallucinating who I used to be and _that_ me—that me had no one. Nobody ever would have come to help and nobody ever would have protected me."

 _That_ he understood. He spent most of his life feeling the exact same way.

"But you did...everyone did," she said softly. "I never tried to come after you, I never even tried to look for you because—because I knew it was my fault you were gone," she admitted and Bruce frowned as she bit down on her lower lip in frustration, "but then I got into trouble and—and there you were. I just...I don't know how I became this person—this person that people are willing to risk themselves to save."

Bruce stood just behind her still and the answer came from his mouth before he even thought it over, "Because who you are now isn't who you were then. Natasha...you proved back there that you aren't the person they tried to make you be, you defied everything they did to you."

"She's my mother," came the pained words, but the words that followed it were as though she couldn't figure out what to say, "she—my..."

Bruce turned her around to face him and the confusion mixed with disbelief in her eyes was terrible to see. "No, no, she's not," he told her in an instant, "she's just some woman who gave you half of her DNA...but that _doesn't_ make her your mother."

"Every time I think I know who I was and what happened to me the story changes..." she told him next, "the one thing I've _always_ remembered clearly was her dying..."

Bruce remembered that now that she said it again, it was something she had told him after they watched a movie together—that she remembered her mother's screams as a soldier took Natasha herself from her burning house. The reality of that hit him in an instant and he sighed. "No, it isn't," he pointed out. "You were four, Natasha. The house was on fire and you heard a scream..." he reminded her next, "and because nobody went in for her you assumed—"

"That she was dead..." Natasha murmured, "but she never was. She did this to me—to us..."

He released a shaky breath as Natasha pulled the towel tighter around herself. She was displaying a sudden modicum of self-consciousness and modesty that she typically didn't and Bruce frowned further as she tucked it in to stay put before she decided to merely cross her arms over herself a little awkwardly.

"I don't know who I am anymore..." she told him, looking anywhere in the room except for at him.

Bruce sighed before he put his hands back on her shoulders and turned her back around to the mirror. "You're you," he assured her, "you're someone worth fighting for..."

Her eyes shifted to his own in the mirror in an instant before she turned back around and looked right at him. She finally moved one of her hands and gripped his shirt with her fingers as she stared directly into his own eyes and her look was one of absolute astonishment. "You risked everything for me, Bruce. Your freedom...your life..." she whispered.

"So did you..." Bruce reminded her quickly, "I remember what you did—I remember you offering yourself to him to protect me..."

"I never believed that love was real, that two people could care about each other on a level that—that nothing else mattered," Natasha admitted with slight uncertainty, "then I saw Clint with Laura and I realized...it was just me—that I couldn't have what they had." For a moment she looked away again before her gaze once again met his and her words came out in some baffled version of wonder, "Until you." Her words stunned him a little and he listened intently when she pressed her other hand on the side of his face. Her next words came out more hesitantly and cautiously, "I've felt more since I've been with you then I have felt in my entire life..."

Bruce wanted to say something, to say anything, but he couldn't quite find the words. Her voice was coming out more raw and real than he had ever heard her before and for the first time in a long time, that look of sheer adoration mixed with a foreign vulnerability on her face had his heart racing all over again. He was more surprised when her hand released his shirt and instead shifted over to rest just above his heart.

"You're everything I never knew I always wanted...and I never—" Natasha paused slightly in thought before she continued her statement, "I didn't even understand it all until—until I stood there and offered my life for yours...and even then I didn't know for sure, not until you—" She swallowed a little as though her mouth had dried up and her eyes depicted more sorrow then he had ever seen. "By the time I understood it, you were already gone..." she murmured, "and I didn't—I never imagined that loving someone could _physically_ hurt until that moment..."

Bruce froze in an instant as he stared at her with his eyes wide. He wasn't sure that he heard her right. Hell, all of the sudden he couldn't even remember the rest of what she said _before_ that. It took a moment before he remembered how to speak and the request came out of its own volition, "S-say that again...?"

Natasha looked slightly confused for a moment, "What?"

"That last part...say it again," he told her.

He saw the realization hit her within seconds and her mouth opened and then closed a few times before she swallowed again. Finally her voice came out much more quietly, nervously if he had to choose an exact word, "I—I love you."

Bruce pulled her closer in an instant and pressed his lips to hers. There was the tiniest noise of surprise emitted from her mouth against his own before both her hands gripped his shirt and she returned the kiss. He didn't even realize they were moving until he heard a slight thump and she gasped against his lips. He froze in an instant, pulling away when he realized that he had backed her right up into the wall beside the sink. Natasha's eyes slowly fluttered back open to look at him and she released a few shaky breaths while she studied him with confusion.

"I didn't—I'm sorry," Bruce mumbled out in an instant as he looked her over, "I didn't mean to hurt you..."

Natasha shook her head without hesitation before she spoke, "You didn't."

He was stunned when she gripped his shirt again and quite literally yanked his mouth back to her own but he didn't fight it. Without thought his hands gripped her waist as he pushed closer, at least until he couldn't possibly get any closer. It was when she hooked one arm around the back of his neck that the slit where the two ends of the towel met parted more and his fingers met bare skin. The breathy little sigh she released against his lips was one he recognized from over half a year ago when they had tested one another's boundaries, one that made his heart race a bit too dangerously.

"Woah, my bad."

Bruce pulled himself away from Natasha in an instant and looked over at Clint in the doorway with surprise. He wasn't sure if he was more embarrassed or amused when he realized that the archer had his hand covering his eyes and that he had half turned around to face away from them.

"Uh, Nat wasn't there so—you know...and uh, Stark was looking for you, probably both of you actually if Nat's up to it," Clint mentioned before a cheeky comment finally came out of him, "looked like she was a few seconds ago."

Bruce was almost certain the heat that rose to his face in that instant was visible and he glanced over at Natasha. His brow furrowed in an instant when he realized she wasn't looking at himself or Clint now. He shifted to look back over at Clint and he noticed in an instant the the other man was watching his partner with the same uncertainty.

The realization hit Bruce in an instant.

Clint had said that for two days Natasha looked right through him and that she wouldn't speak to him. He insisted that it was Bruce himself she needed rather than him but suddenly Bruce wasn't so sure that was the reason now. There was something more going on and he wasn't entirely certain what it was.

"Give us a minute?" Bruce requested.

"Yeah...sure," Clint answered.

Bruce watched him look over at Natasha again with worry before the archer relented and left the room. It was a good minute or two of Clint being gone when Bruce finally decided to say what was on his mind, "It wasn't the fever or the hallucinations, was it?" He saw her eyes shift back to him and the answer was in them, like a window into a guilty conscious. "You saw him and you knew he was real," he added next, "but you pretended you didn't."

Natasha took a deep breath before she inclined her head to the side slightly to show he was correct. A few more seconds and her voice finally found its way out, "The last thing I said to him was that we weren't family, that we never were." She turned her head to the side and Bruce frowned as she rubbed her eyes and trailed her back down the wall until she was sitting on the floor. "He was the first person to believe I could be something better, the first person to make me feel like I _was_ a person again, like I _was_ better..." she told him softly, "and I told him that he was nothing to me."

As much as his body protested it, Bruce eased himself down to sit on the floor in front of her. "Natasha, Barton's your best friend," he reminded her, "he'll know you weren't really—you know...yourself. You didn't mean it."

"If I died then that would have been the last thing I said to him," Natasha said with a sigh and an uneasy look, "and I don't know how to take it back."

Bruce chuckled a little as he watched the battle on her face, "Sorry is usually a good place to start, but not saying anything and pretending he's not there, that isn't going to change anything." He shrugged when she looked back at him with uncertainty and he placed his hand over top of hers, "He's not going to hold what you said to him under the influence of a deadly toxin and your mental programming against you so how about I go to the lab and talk to Tony, you talk to Barton, and then you can come up there and we'll figure out what the hell is going on."

Natasha chuckled, sighed, then rubbed at her face again, "I'm beginning to think whatever that drug was is doing more than making me feel like an honorary member of Cheech and Chong. I don't lose it like this, you know? It's...weird."

Bruce couldn't help but laugh at her words before he dared to ask, "What exactly have you been seeing?"

"Well, ironically back in Sri Lanka I think I saw Puff the Magic Dragon's angry brother," Natasha told him with a sly grin and he felt himself smile at her joke. "Honestly sometimes I see me, well...me when I was younger. Other times I see things like dragons that are so damned absurd I know they can't possibly be real. But others—others are so _real_ that sometimes I just kind of check out..."

"How often?" he questioned.

"A few times when we were trying to escape, then yesterday there were too many times to count," she answered with a shrug, "but um—I haven't actually seen anything since I woke up earlier. I don't know, maybe it was all just exhaustion."

Bruce gave her the smallest of nods, "Maybe..."

"I'm tired..." Natasha admitted as she rubbed at her temples.

Bruce was about to respond when she pulled her towel off without thought and tossed it aside. He swallowed thickly, unable to avert his eyes as she redressed herself. He was positive that she was talking during the entire ordeal but his brain didn't quite comprehend her words as he watched her tug the scrub pants on.

"Bruce?"

He averted his eyes to _her_ eyes in an instant and he knew his look was one of being caught red-handed. "Uh...w-what?" he mumbled out.

That _certainly_ didn't help his cause but Natasha's look of pure amusement was almost worth it as she quirked an eyebrow up at him and her lips formed a rather saucy little smile. "Never mind," she told him with a chuckle.

"N-no, you uh—you said you were tired," he stated quickly, stammering more words out almost pathetically, "I just I uh—I missed the rest of it."

While he was glad to see the fire back in her eyes and the easy smile back on her face because she had turned him into an idiot before her once again, he also _really_ wanted to know what she said. Instead she tapped him playfully on the side of the face, kissed his cheek, and then said one of his favorite things, "You're a huge dork."

"You're not gonna tell me, are you?" he questioned with a bemused sigh.

"No," Natasha answered with a smirk, "It couldn't have been _that_ distracting Bruce, I look like a mosaic."

The words came out before his brain said _don't_ , "I'm finally a fan of art."

Her laugh was light and feathery before she shook her head, "Again I repeat— _huge_ dork."

She stepped around him and out of the bathroom and Bruce watched as she looked to Clint who was waiting in the hallway, his foot tapping the wall in obvious frustration and the amusement faded easily from her face. He followed her as she finally headed towards the hall and she paused next to her partner and looked over at him.

"You can go see Stark, I just need to talk to Clint before I go up there," Natasha told him.

Bruce gave the smallest nod, "Alright."

And as he wandered away from the two and onto the elevator, he really hoped that whatever news Tony had was good news.

* * *

 **Alright, we'll jump on the Clint and Nat conversation in the next chapter and then see what's cooking in Tony's lab :)**

 **Hope this chapter made up for the last one's lack of Brutasha!**


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter 16** :

" _Life had broken my heart, my spirit  
and then you crossed my path."_

Natasha watched out of the corner of her eye as Bruce disappeared behind the closing elevator doors. It took another moment before she convinced herself to finally look Clint in the eye.

"So," Clint started first and she was glad for it but his next comment made her force herself not to roll her eyes, "I never knew Banner had face sucking restorative abilities."

She was almost positive her lips quirked upward regardless of her best attempts not to. She had long ago stopped trying to hide herself from Clint and it was near impossible to do it now.

"I should have been there..." he mumbled out. For a moment she couldn't quite decide what he meant by that but his next comment explained it all, "Sri Lanka, I should have been there. Stark left me out—he didn't even tell me he knew where you were. If he weren't so damned busy trying to figure out what they injected you with in that facility I'd be ripping him a new one—"

"Clint..." Natasha interrupted him, "he was doing what I wanted him to do."

Her partner narrowed his eyes slightly in uncertainty as he studied her and she supposed she couldn't quite blame him for that. "You didn't want my help?" came his uneasy question.

"Yes—I mean no—I..." and she wasn't sure all the sudden _how_ to answer that or what the right answer was. She heaved out a sigh, closed her eyes and rubbed her temples as she tried to figure out how exactly what to say.

Natasha supposed she hesitated too long because as she reopened her eyes, Clint leaned against the wall and folded his arms across his chest before he spoke again, all while she had yet to decide how to respond in the right way, "What did I do, Nat?" She could hear the hurt in his voice and this wasn't going the way that she wanted it to, this wasn't the conversation she meant to have.

"You?" she questioned with confusion. "Clint, you didn't _do_ anything. This was about what I did—what I said," she assured him as she leaned against the opposite wall. "When Tony was bringing me to you, to the farm, I made him turn around," she finally explained. "You promised Laura that you were done, that you were retired," she reminded him next, "I wasn't going to let you break that promise." She bit down on her lip before she continued, "I told Tony I had nothing left besides your family, that I'd rather not have you then get you killed. He was just doing what I wanted him to, so don't bite his head off for that..."

"Nat..."

Natasha frowned before she brought up the real issue, "When I said to you—when I said..." Even now she couldn't quite find the right thing to say, the right way to bring up _what_ she had said.

"I know you didn't mean it," came Clint's immediate response before she even had to find the words.

"I didn't..." she assured him, "most of it anyways..."

She could see the sadness lurking behind his eyes and he stepped into her personal space without permission, something she had long ago gotten used to from him. "Nat, I didn't take you in because I felt bad," he told her quickly, "you're my best friend and if I didn't trust you with every fiber of my being then I wouldn't have brought you to my home..."

The guilt was almost overwhelming when Clint pulled her in and wrapped his arms around her and she hesitated before she returned the sentiment. "I'm sorry..." she finally murmured out Bruce's suggestion before she followed it up with the only other thing she could think to say to make it right, "You're the only family I've ever known..."

"The keyword there is family, Nat," Clint reminded her, "because you _are_ family..."

"I know..."

Natasha blinked a few times as Clint pulled back slightly, his hands still gripped on her shoulders, "So that's what the last two and a half days were about? That's why you just laid there like a sack of potatoes? You were just ignoring me?"

She huffed out a chuckle before she answered honestly, "Some of the time, part of the time I was actually sort of checked out of reality."

"I just thought you needed Banner more than you needed me," he stated with a relieved face before he looked equally amused and annoyed, "jeez...I'm not sure which of those is actually worse to hear." He released her shoulders before giving her a playful shove, "You're a jerk, Nat, you know that?"

Natasha smiled a little before she shook her head in amusement. "I know. And I don't _need_ Bruce," she insisted, "but for the first time in my life I do _want_ something—"

Clint had that all knowing look on his face that made her want to punch him. "Yeeeah, after what I saw? I'll bet you do," came his teasing.

She punched him in the shoulder in an instant.

" _Ouch_!" her partner gave the mock cry before he rubbed his shoulder, "I'm old and retired, you can't do that anymore." He tilted his head to the side slightly, gave her a discerning eye, then spoke again with a more serious tone, "So this thing with you and Banner—do I need to have a talk with him?"

"A talk?" Natasha questioned in confusion.

Clint snickered, "Yeah, you know, sniff out his intentions? Threaten to hurt him if he hurts you? I mean I'll do it but I'm not gonna lie, the man _can_ turn into a Hulk so he kinda scares the crap outta me."

She snorted out a laugh in an instant. "Yeah, I'm sure the Big Guy would take real well to your threats of bodily harm," she offered up with a smirk and a shake of her head. Much as she had missed her best friend she also knew that Tony and Bruce would be waiting for her in the lab. "I guess I need to go see what Tony has," she murmured as she rubbed her face. She'd be damned but she was still exhausted.

"And maybe after that you can convince Banner to cuddle you to sleep again."

Natasha didn't hesitate to smack him in the shoulder again.

"Jeez! I'm kidding!" he cried out, holding his hands out in mock surrender, "sort of...you do look exhausted, Nat. So, you know, if Banner helps then—well, sleep with him." The look she gave him must have been enough because he put his hands up again as a show of surrender.

"You're an idiot," she informed him.

"Yeeah," Clint agreed with a chuckle and she smiled a little when he leaned forward and kissed her on the top of the head, "but that's why you love me."

Natasha rolled her eyes before she headed down the hallway. She paused after only a few feet before she turned and looked back at him, "Clint?"

"Yeah?"

It shouldn't be so hard to get the emotional crap out but it still was, it was still something she was learning, so she gave it her best, "You being here the whole time was exactly what I needed."

Apparently it was the right thing to say because he smiled. "Always," he promised.

* * *

Bruce stepped off the elevator and into the lab. He barely managed not to jump out of his own skin when Tony's typical rock music blared through to his ear drums to the point where they might start bleeding. It was always nice to see, or rather hear, that some things just never changed.

"Tony."

Nothing. Bruce quirked his eyebrow up as he stood a few feet behind him now, watching as Tony bobbed his head to the music and tapped at the keys on the keyboard before him.

"Tony!"

Yelling was equally as ineffective so instead he picked up Tony's favored electric shock conducing pen and poked him in the shoulder with it.

 _Zap._

"Oww! What the fu—?" The billionaire visibly faltered and jumped a little before he turned the music off and turned around, "Jeez, Bruce. A little warning?"

"Yeah, I tried the nicer method of saying your name but you've gone deaf after years of blaring AC/DC," Bruce told him with a chuckle.

Tony scrunched his nose up distastefully before he shrugged. "S'pose that payback was a few years coming anyhow," he decided. "You alright?" came the unexpected question.

"Er...yeah," Bruce answered with a shrug, "I guess. Been a bad couple of days."

Both of Tony's eyebrows raised upward in response to that, "Yeah, that's an understatement."

Bruce narrowed his eyes slightly when he heard not just one but _two_ female voices talking in the next lab over.

"Uh, right," Tony commented, "I guess I should have mentioned I recruited a little help."

Bruce shifted his entire body so he could look through the window into the opposite lab and then he shot his best friend a pointed look after he caught sight of one of the people inside. "Betty? Really, Tony?" he questioned.

"Technically I'd like to point out that she volunteered herself to help out," Tony mentioned.

Bruce took a second look and frowned when he saw who the second woman was, "Is that Dr. Cho?"

"Yeah, about that," Tony answered, "I might have called her yesterday and she flew in last night."

That didn't settle well, "This isn't good...is it?"

Given the look on Tony's face, Bruce wasn't to sure what to think and Tony's words didn't help, "We're hitting a few—um...snags."

"All three of you?" Bruce questioned with a frown.

"It's complicated, uh—did you get Red talking?" Tony questioned and with his nod the billionaire continued, "is she coming up here?"

"She needed to talk to Barton then she said she would come up," Bruce assured him.

Tony gave a nod, "We should wait then. Easier then trying to go through this twice because I'm gonna have a hard enough time doing it once."

"That bad?" Bruce dared to ask.

His friend ran his hand through his hair and released a frustrated breath before he ignored the question and changed the subject, "So. You were dead."

"Tony..." he grumbled out.

"How do you feel about that?" came the next question, almost like a therapist would ask.

Bruce frowned but he accepted that Tony clearly planned to wait for Natasha before he answered any more questions. "I don't know..." he admitted as he took a seat at the desk on the opposite side of Tony. "Used to be all I thought about, you know?" he wondered aloud, "but—I don't know, maybe I had just settled into the thinking that it couldn't happen."

"Well...that got proven wrong," Tony pointed out with obvious distaste, "it really wasn't a thrilling moment to see that my best friend wasn't breathing, Bruce. To think that I was too late."

He opened his mouth to comment but the truth was that Bruce couldn't think of a valid response.

"It also wasn't pleasant to see Natasha cry," Tony tacked on.

Bruce stared at him for a few seconds before the comment left his lips, "...what?"

"I'm pretty sure she beat you back to life," Tony informed him and Bruce couldn't help the confusion on his face. "She was uh...she freaked out," came the next explanation, "she was hitting you in the chest and yelling at you to come back—in front of _everyone_..."

 _That_ was something that nobody told him yet, not even Natasha. She told him that she found out that love could physically hurt in that moment but he hadn't known to what extent she meant. It was also the moment that he realized something else, the reason why he wasn't sure how he himself felt about actually dying.

Looking at Tony's rather distraught face over what happened and hearing about Natasha's breakdown over it...

It wasn't _just_ Bruce himself anymore. There were people who actually cared whether he lived or died now.

"Just an FYI, I haven't had my chance to actually let all this sink in yet," Tony informed him next, "I'm still due to go crazy too about the fact that you almost died. You're kind of my best friend, just in case you weren't aware or I forgot to tell you."

Bruce huffed out a slight chuckle at the comment. "You don't make it an easy thing to forget," he let Tony know as he leaned back in the chair while he tried to let it all sink in. "I spent years trying to get rid of the Other Guy, or find a way to just...end it all," he admitted with a sigh, "I just stopped believing it was a possibility." It was probably still a terrible thing to admit but he said the next thing out loud anyways, "I uh—I actually am glad I'm not dead at this exact moment but...I'm kind of relieved to know that it's possible."

"That's morbid, Bruce..." Tony told him with a grim look.

"Yeah...I know," Bruce mumbled out, "probably not something I should have shared with the class?"

Tony didn't look too happy to hear it but the billionaire leaned back in his own chair before he inclined his head with the smallest shrug. "Eh...you're supposed to be able to tell me that kind of self-loathing hoohah, part of the whole friend thing, or so I'm told," he finally commented, "but I'm not so sure I'd be telling Red you're happy to know there's a way to off yourself."

Bruce couldn't exactly disagree with that. He had no idea how he would begin to bring that up to her anyways even if he _wanted_ to tell her. "You think she'd be mad?" he questioned.

"Hard to say. I don't think she'd be angry per se..." Tony answered, "but I don't think you'd be giving her any warm and fuzzy feelings after the way she reacted when you actually were dead." The other man sighed and Bruce could tell that Tony was more upset over the entire ordeal than he was letting on, he always was. He'd cover it up with bad jokes, sarcasm and talking about someone else's feelings over his own but Bruce had learned to see through all of that ages ago.

"Are you okay?" Bruce finally dared to ask.

Tony quirked an eyebrow up, "Peachy."

"Tony."

The billionaire gave him the stink-eye. "No," he finally answered, "first Natasha stops breathing on me and then you? I don't have a whole lot of friends because I'm admittedly not the most personable of people—and mostly because people are idiots and I don't really like them."

Bruce chuckled in an instant.

"So no, I'm not okay," Tony told him again, "I almost lost two friends and no offense but Rogers would make a terrible replacement for you—he's not exactly science friendly, you know, except for the part where _he's_ the experiment."

"Noted," Bruce assured him with a chuckle, "I'll try to keep the dying thing to just that once."

"Appreciate that, also appreciate it if you could convince your girlfriend to do the same?"

Bruce was about to open his mouth and comment when the elevator doors opened and Natasha was produced from behind them. She looked tired but she also looked like a slight weight had been lifted from her shoulders so he supposed that meant her chat with Clint had gone well.

"There's my favorite assassin," Tony called out before giving a wolf whistle, giving no indication to her of the conversation that had just ensued between them.

Bruce rolled his eyes as the redhead gripped a chair and pulled it along with her to the desk both he and Tony were already sitting at. He tried not to chuckle when she let go of the chair, sat down, then proceeded to kick her feet up on top of the desk.

"Really?" Tony grumbled out, "you're putting your feet on my desk?"

Natasha smirked, "They're clean."

"Oh good, she's spunky again," Tony stated with a roll of his eyes but Bruce could hear the relief behind his sarcasm.

"Alright...so, much as I really love labs after Sri Lanka maybe we can just get this over with?" came Natasha's request.

Bruce nodded his head to Natasha to show he was awaiting whatever Tony found as well.

"Yeah...alright," Tony agreed with a sigh. "FRIDAY, bring up the display and data," came his order. "Meanwhile, while that's all loading up for this lovely show-and-tell feature I'd like to add that this is confusing as all hell," he mentioned.

"I'm not gonna like this," he heard Natasha mutter.

Bruce shared the sentiments, "So what is it?"

"To be honest? I have no idea," Tony admitted, "besides the fever which we're concluding is causing the hallucinations the only thing I'm seeing effected in her blood work is slight pH imbalance."

Bruce narrowed his eyes slightly as the rather large hologram display appeared to show the computer screen. "Just a pH imbalance? That doesn't make any sense...and I'm gonna guess that's Natasha's blood?" he finally questioned, "I don't see anything off about it."

"Yeah, at first I didn't either," Tony admitted with a sigh, "look closer."

He studied it but it was Natasha who commented on it before Bruce himself could, "What are the specks?"

"See...she calls them specks," Tony chuckled, "I assumed the microscope was dirty, didn't think much of it."

"So it's dirt?" Bruce questioned.

"I wish," Tony commented before his hand waved over the display and switched to a zoomed in version, "now look."

Bruce stood up and leaned in closer, staring at the image with confusion. The specks were certainly bigger but he still couldn't quite make it out. "What the hell..." he mumbled. He was squinting now and he was sure of it when Tony held a pair of his old glasses out to him. Bruce plucked them from his hands and put them on before he looked back at the image. "Some kind of—what...bacteria?" he asked.

"No."

Bruce swiveled his head over to Helen Cho as she entered the lab but Betty still seemed to be working in the opposite one. Natasha didn't seem surprised to see her, though Bruce supposed she had taken note of the woman when she first entered the lab before.

"I guess it's nothing good if you need a geneticist," came Natasha's offhanded comment.

"In this case I'm here purely for scientific matters," Helen assured them. "What you're seeing on the screen wasn't dirt and it's not a bacteria or infection, per-say..." she assured them.

"It's the reason I called her. Aside from being a world renowned geneticist Dr. Cho here has also been paving the way for research into nanotechnology," Tony admitted.

Natasha frowned and Bruce felt himself doing much the same.

The realization hit Bruce like a sack of bricks, "They're nanites."

Natasha's eyes narrowed with obvious confusion, "Nanites?"

"Nano-machines," Bruce told her as he stared at the display again, "are they...functioning?"

"Hard to say," Helen told him, "technically nano-machines are all still a hypothetical, no one's made a truly functioning nanite yet." She looked impressed to say the least and Bruce supposed he would too if the person they were currently residing in weren't sitting there with them looking utterly baffled.

"Well they're supposed to have a purpose, right?" he asked.

Tony gave the smallest nod, "Technically, yes. The idea behind them to date is that they could be used for purposes a lot like Helen's Cradle. Program them to do things like regenerate tissue, fight diseases internally, hell—mend bones. All research thus far has been for medical purposes and some are in initial testing phases but—not on 'insert into human here' testing phases."

Helen chuckled, "If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say that the nanites in her bloodstream are what's causing her nonstop high fever."

"You haven't just tried to extract some of them? See what they do?" Bruce questioned.

"We have and we also discovered they seem to be carrying—something," Helen answered, "unfortunately it _is_ a nanite and the amount that a single one carries isn't easy to extract, we've already tried three times and each time we destroyed the sample inside the nanite."

"Can't you extract more of the nanites?" Bruce dared to ask next.

"We've been trying," Tony told him.

"Except the nanites in her blood are disappearing at an alarmingly high rate of speed," Helen finished.

"Dr. Cho, you do realize I'm sitting right here, right?" came Natasha's somewhat annoyed comment, "if all the three of you are going to do is talk about me rather than talk to me then I'll go downstairs and get the cliff notes version later."

Bruce glanced over at her in an instant and though himself and Tony hadn't flat out treated Natasha like she weren't there as Helen was, he understood her frustration with it all. They were scientists and she wasn't, but it _was_ Natasha they were talking about.

"I'm sorry," Helen offered up with a frown, "I didn't mean to."

"It's fine," Natasha insisted with a shrug of indifference, "so _why_ are they disappearing?"

Bruce gave the woman props because this time she directed her answer _to_ Natasha, "To be frank I think it has to do with your serum."

He saw Natasha look to Tony in an instant and Bruce himself did the same. The billionaire quickly put his hands up in self defense, "I needed help and all things considered Helen was the only one I could ask for it and trust with all the details. She needed to know."

Natasha looked perturbed but she didn't say anything against it. She seemed to be letting it go, at least for the moment. "Fine," she agreed, "so what does it have to do with my serum?"

"She thinks your serum is breaking down the nanites," Bruce answered in an instant.

"And I believe that's the true cause of your high fever," Helen tacked on, "your serum is working in overdrive like you have an infection, the over-extension of it is causing your body temperature to rise, sometimes high enough that you hallucinate."

"Makes sense..." Bruce murmured, "so how many _did_ you extract?"

"Not nearly enough," Helen told him.

"Only a few dozen," was Tony's official answer, "it's not easy."

Natasha's question came next, "And how many are in me?"

Helen looked a little uneasy about that, "Given the rate of speed that your body and your serum are breaking them down? The latest blood sample had hardly any left..."

"That being said, your first sample showed about two dozen just in one sample of blood," Tony explained next.

"In one?" Bruce questioned immediately.

Tony gave a small nod, "The rate of speed she's breaking them down and considering the size of the original vial they were contained in..."

"There could have been thousands inside the vial," Helen finished.

That didn't set well with him at all and Bruce sat back down in the chair as Natasha rubbed tiredly at her eyes.

Tony held the syringe up and wiggled it, "You mind, Red?"

She heaved out a sigh but held her arm out without a word. Bruce watched her but Natasha didn't react as Tony extracted some of her blood before he placed it on a slide for the microscope.

"FRIDAY?" Tony called out.

"Initializing."

Bruce watched as the blood sample was analyzed into the computer before it displayed on screen, already zoomed in.

One. That was all he saw in the blood sample.

"Natasha your body and your serum have almost completely wiped them out already," Tony explained, "so in theory you should—you know...feel better soon."

"Explains why you said you hadn't been hallucinating since you woke up," Bruce told her and he watched as she gave the smallest shrug of indifference.

"It also fails to tell us what's _inside_ these things. You say my body broke down the nanites? What about whatever is inside of them?" came Natasha's question.

Tony could only shake his head, "That's the part where we're a lot more iffy."

"Nothing in your blood work is coming up strange in the systems, your pH is little acidic, but that's it," Helen stated, "what I'd like to do is take the nanites we've extracted back to my own lab—"

"Absolutely not," Natasha stated and Bruce couldn't quite blame her for that answer. "First you go bringing the nanites to your lab, and then my blood and test results are in your lab, notes about me and my serum," she stated as she crossed her arms, "then somebody gets a hold of all of this."

"I would never—" Helen tried to defend herself.

Natasha shook her head, "I'm not saying you would give it to them. I'm saying that the worst things have happened with the best intentions."

Bruce knew exactly what Natasha was talking about. Ultron had been created with the 'best intentions' so to speak and that had almost ended in global destruction.

"Natasha," Tony's voice had a bit of a warning tone to it, "Helen's got a lab specifically engineered towards research into nanotechnology. I _cannot_ extract what's in the nanites in my lab, I don't have the equipment meant for it."

"No."

Bruce looked to Natasha and frowned as he rubbed his face with worry. He couldn't blame her for not wanting this to happen and he also couldn't fault Helen and Tony for insisting that it needed to happen.

The truth was he didn't know what the right choice was.

"Nat, I own the lab," came Tony's assurance, "I bought out the company after the Ultron incident."

"It's yours?" he heard Natasha ask with uncertainty.

Tony shrugged without much care, "I needed a new investment, Helen's name is still on the bracket for a leading medical breakthrough and she got some added funding to get things moving along faster—and while we're trying to figure this out Helen's lab will only be accessed by myself, her, Bruce and Dr. Ross."

Natasha looked more than a little uncertain and Bruce was too.

Even Bruce he asked the obvious question, "You want to shut down an entire research facility?"

Tony shrugged, "It's faster than trying to lock down and get the equipment we'd need delivered here."

"So you're just going to suspend what could be your most important research yet...for me?" Natasha questioned.

"Betty explained a lot of what happened, at least the parts she was around for," Tony stated, "if that's what it takes to make sure nobody can try to turn the two of you into a lab experiment again—then yes."

Bruce knew he was just as stunned as Natasha looked right now.

"Besides, technically you've given us what we haven't been able to make yet," Tony stated nonchalantly, "so it actually puts us way further ahead."

Bruce chuckled after a few seconds before he looked over at Natasha's befuddled expression. Apparently regardless of their prior conversation she still couldn't seem to wrap her head around the fact that someone would do something like this just for her benefit.

Natasha looked like she was fighting an internal war and Bruce stood up and crouched down in front of her. "Natasha if you're not going to agree for _you..._ then I'm asking you to do it for me." Her eyes were locked onto his and he said the only other thing he could, "Please..."

"I'll turn the place into a fortress," Tony assured her, "nobody will get in that isn't allowed."

Finally she gave the smallest nod of agreement.

"Alright, I'll take care of the details in the morning," Tony told them, "and I hope you don't mind but I'm thinking of putting your ex on my pay roll. That woman is brilliant."

Bruce shot his friend a dirty look but considering that the corner of Natasha's lips quirked up into a semi-smile again he couldn't really find it in him to be too frustrated.

"So, how awkward was that? Locked up with your ex-girlfriend and your current one?" Tony questioned next.

It seemed to garner Helen's interest before Bruce could even think to give another dirty look because the woman's question came out quickly, "You two are together?"

That was the question of a lifetime because even though he and Natasha had talked and come to more than a few unexpected revelations about what they meant to one another, and though it was more than either of them ever thought it would be, where they actually stood was _still_ something that they hadn't discussed.

Neither of them gave a verbal answer but when Bruce finally looked to Natasha he could see her giving Helen a look that basically said 'what of it?'.

Bruce knew he was smiling because Tony was snickering.

Helen didn't look at all surprised, instead she cocked her head to the side slightly and then gave a nod, "Makes sense."

That stunned him, "It does? We do?"

"Well yeah," Helen answered with a level of certainty that surprised him, "see our most primitive instinct as females is to find the strongest most dominant male to mate with."

Tony snorted out a laugh and Bruce stared at her with his mouth agape.

"Did you just call me primitive?" came Natasha's somewhat amused question.

"Not—not just you...I mean all women—" Helen stated immediately.

Natasha quirked an eyebrow up, "Hence your interest in Thor?"

"You know...I'm just gonna get back to work," Helen mentioned as she awkwardly made her way back to the other lab.

"That was mean," Bruce told her with a chuckle.

Natasha shrugged, "She called me primitive."

Tony was still laughing in his chair and Bruce sighed as he shook his head.

"I'm going to go lay down," Natasha decided. Bruce moved back to his own chair and sat down as the redhead stood up and she looked over to Tony before she moved elsewhere, "And thanks."

"Hey, I consider this a solid investment really. You getting a bunch of microscopic robots in your body is going to make me rich—more rich," Tony assured her.

She huffed out a tiny little laugh and Bruce watched as she shook her head and moved back to the elevator.

"You know you could just say you're welcome," Bruce informed his friend.

"Where's the fun in that?" Tony asked with a shrug.

Bruce chuckled as he relaxed a little but it was hard to completely relax when everything hurt. He just wasn't used to being battered and bruised and he sighed as he leaned back in his own chair again and closed his eyes for a minute.

Tony let him sit in silence for all of two minutes, which Bruce actually found to be an impressive length of time for his best fiend. When Tony's words actually came out he had to force himself not to laugh at them because laughing actually did hurt, "Why don't you just Hulk it off?"

"Because this is reminding me that I'm still a person," Bruce answered with a shrug.

"That's stupid," Tony stated.

Bruce knew he was smiling again at Tony's comment. "Natasha's got it worse than me and she can't just 'Hulk it off'. I think I'll live with a little discomfort," he mentioned.

Tony's next comment was true but something Bruce didn't quite expect, "Maybe but you've never run around battered and bruised. Loathed as I am to actually say this out loud, Natasha is used to this."

He really wished Tony hadn't said it but the billionaire was right. Sometimes the redhead spent more time injured than not and she never seemed to bat an eye over it. Maybe injuries were her way of reminding herself there was a person inside too. Each of them considered themselves a monster but if pain was reminding him that he was alive, that he was more than the Hulk, then it stood to reason that Natasha might actually feel the same.

It also wasn't something he really wanted to think on any further.

"Think I'll go lay down," Bruce stated after a few seconds.

Tony was snickered, "You're going to go lay down—just a few minutes after Natasha does?" Bruce groaned when Tony waggled his eyebrows, "Go get her buddy."

"That's not—"

"I'm kidding, Bruce," Tony assured him, "frankly you're probably the one man besides the star spangled man with a plan that I think legitimately means 'go lay down' right after a woman does."

Bruce huffed out a laugh and shook his head. "Appreciate that," he added as he stood up and stretched painfully. He also couldn't help doing the same thing that Natasha had done, "Tony...you didn't give up on us and you're still doing everything possible. So...you know, thank you."

He watched Tony scrunch up his nose distastefully with being thanked yet again but finally the billionaire relented and inclined his head, giving the response that Bruce had told him he could have simply given earlier, "You're welcome."

* * *

 **Almost getting towards the end of the story here. I would have done a few sappy chapters but since there's a third story coming I won't go too crazy for the end of this one. Just doing some cuddlies for you guys with one last chapter before we head into the new story. Last chapter's already partially written out. Actually thought I had posted this already so—whoops lol. My bad.**

 **Plenty of Bruce/Natasha in the last part, promise. :)**


	18. Chapter 18

I lied. This isn't the last chapter. There's one more after because this one was getting long, I was in the middle of another scene and still had one more prepared to write after that, so it just seemed more logical to split them up and give you one now and one later since I'm still getting over my flu and I might binge sleep again. Less you have to wait for, right? :D

 **Chapter 17** :

" _You light up the dark and  
you're all the good within me.  
My heart is filled, rebuilt."_

As Bruce made it to his own room in the tower he could really only think of one simple way to relieve the aches and stiffness. Before he could actually conceive going into the bathroom he found himself more than a little surprised to see that Natasha was curled up on his bed wearing nothing but one of his button up shirts and a pair of his boxers with the blankets shoved aside to his usual side of the bed. Her former outfit of the scrub pants and white shirt were left askew on the floor by his dresser and he chuckled to himself when he realized that his clothes might have been her only actual choice. She didn't keep anything of her own in the tower any longer, not that she had ever kept much in the first place.

His first thought was that as per usual she was merely pretending to still be asleep, something she had done to him on numerous occasions in the past and something that typically ended with him looking like an idiot. If she was then she wasn't relenting because even as he sat down on the edge of the bed beside her she didn't budge. She looked almost peaceful for once, like everything that happened the last few days simply didn't exist. Bruce tucked the hair that was hanging over her face behind her ear and he was surprised when all she did was adjust herself more comfortably on the bed.

Finally he relented to the thought that she was actually asleep and he reached over to the other side of the bed to pull the blanket over top of her and again she gave no indication she was awake. This time he actually believed it because Natasha released the tiniest little breath before she burrowed into the blanket. Maybe it was just that her subconscious didn't deem him a threat or maybe she was just too exhausted to wake but either way he was glad to see her stay asleep.

Finally he removed himself from her side and did what he meant to do, he relaxed himself into one steaming hot bath. He would never in his life admit to anyone that he did that, especially not Tony, but it felt great. Bruce wasn't even sure how long he was in there with his eyes closed because it was as though everything had just melted away for a little while. It wasn't until a while later that he felt eyes on him and he opened his own and looked to the doorway.

Natasha stood there looking in with the smallest of smiles as she leaned against the door frame with her arms crossed loosely over her chest. He knew the heat rose to his face not just in embarrassment from being caught in the bath but from seeing her stand there in his clothes. The shirt hung loosely as did the boxers and yet she acted as though it were a normal wardrobe choice for her, like this was something they had done every day for years. As he glanced her over he was beginning to think there just wasn't anything that could really diminish the allure factor she held, not bruises or his clothes that didn't fit, and for some reason she was looking at him right now like he was the only thing that existed.

"Hey."

It was that one simple word that somehow had become their instant greeting to each other and she said it in a way that he couldn't help but smile awkwardly and return the greeting, "Hey."

Natasha's eyes roamed from his face and down towards the opposite end of the bath before her eyes came back to his and Bruce felt the embarrassment seeping in all over again. Her words came out with the slightest hint of uncertainty, like she wasn't sure how he might react, but she spoke nonetheless, "I was thinking I could join you."

The thought of it alone sent his heart into an erratic state and he stared at her for a good minute. He knew she wasn't saying it with any intention of doing more than simply joining him but it didn't change the fact that he just wasn't sure he could handle _that_ level of intimacy _._ He was reminded of when he walked out of the Barton bathroom to find her standing there in a robe, him in nothing but a towel, and she had said almost the exact same same thing then. He forgot that now, in this very moment, that he hadn't responded in any way, that all he had done was stare at her since she even suggested the idea and his thoughts finally left him vocally, "I don't—I don't know if that's a good idea."

"That's okay, maybe another time," Natasha told him with a smile and he watched as she turned from the doorway to leave.

Bruce frowned in an instant even if she didn't seem offended by his fear. "Natasha, wait," he called out. He still wasn't too sure but the words came out anyways when she turned back towards him, "That wasn't a no."

Her eyes were ever studious as she watched him for a moment and he knew that her hesitation now was for his benefit rather than her own. "You sure?" she questioned.

Given the rapid _thump thump thump_ in his chest he wasn't sure at all but he supposed there were some things he would never know unless he tried. "Not really," he admitted with a sheepish smile, "but that doesn't usually stop you."

Natasha's smile was one of amusement when she answered, "That's true."

Bruce felt his breath catch in his throat when she started unbuttoning the shirt. She was doing it painstakingly slow too, deliberately watching his reaction while she did it and he supposed that was why this differed from every other time he'd seen her without her clothes, this time she was actually doing it _for_ him and not just with him in the vicinity. It was the first time she meant for it to be intimate.

The last button was undone and Bruce watched in wonder as she dropped it over her shoulders. He followed its fall as it pooled to the floor around her feet. His eyes went from her feet to her bruised legs and he swallowed dryly as he let himself continue. She was waiting, watching him as he made it past the barrier of the boxers alone to her waist and the colorful splay of bruising in no way ruined her visage, something he was certain she was aware of.

He couldn't even dare himself to look at her chest for more than a few seconds because he was already treading a thin line and the thought of it alone just might make him lose his mind and his control. He quickly shifted his eyes to her face before he could linger too long on other areas. This time her gaze on him was more intense and he knew she was waiting for him to relax again. It felt almost impossible to do and yet he held his hand out to her anyways. The smile she gave him was worth it all and more and he had to force his eyes to stay on her face when she shimmied out of the last of the clothing and stepped towards him.

It was only a moment later when Natasha's hand landed in his and Bruce followed her every move as she stepped into the opposite end of the bath with one foot, then the other. Slowly but surely she sank into the water and at first he thought she was going to stay at the opposite end. Instead his heart practically leaped out of his chest when she instead came to rest in the small space at his side and her head rested on his shoulder.

The lack of space meant her body was half on top of his, her hand rested on his chest, and then her leg came draped in a dangerous place over one of his own legs. He didn't even realize just how fast his heart was racing until her hand rested just above it. He glanced to the side and met those fierce green eyes that were filled with absolute understanding and patience.

"It's okay," Natasha's voice was soft and reassuring and he didn't know why exactly until he saw a much brighter green reflecting in her eyes from his own. He only felt himself calming again when her hand left his chest found his own hand again. She lifted both their hands from the water with both their palms pressed together before she interlocked their fingers. "See?" she offered up softly, "nothing to worry about."

Bruce finally remembered how to breathe again and he also remembered how to relax. Her leg was still in the worst possible place but he was finally forgetting about it as she rested her head back down on his shoulder and lowered their hands back into the water. He supposed that meant he wasn't on the verge of going green anymore and he took a deep breath before he rested his cheek on her head. The question left his lips before he even knew he was thinking about what Helen said earlier, "Are we...?"

"Hmm?" Natasha hummed out in response.

"Uh...together," Bruce emphasized, and then of course his bumbling and stammering came out, "we—we haven't actually talked about that...we never uh—we never...got to talk about that. You know...robot armies, getting uh—I probably don't need to list everything..."

She was quiet for a few seconds before her voice met his ears again, "I guess that depends on what together entails..." He frowned slightly before she spoke again, "You asked me earlier what I was saying..."

He remembered that. She had dropped her towel and he had completely missed all of what she said after that moment. "I did..." he agreed.

"When I said I was tired, Bruce, I didn't mean in the terms of going to sleep," she explained, "I'm just...tired."

Bruce let that sink in before he understood what she meant, "You don't want to fight anymore."

He didn't expect her to admit it but she did, "No, I don't...I've been fighting my whole life. I don't know if I want to stop forever, or maybe just for right now...but I know I need to, just for a little while."

"You've done enough," he told her again just as he had once before.

"It doesn't feel like it," Natasha told him quietly, "but I'm not sure that it ever will." There was silence between them again and she still hadn't actually answered his question. Even so he gave her time to find the answer for herself. "If we're together then what do you..." she paused and he supposed she was thinking about her words before she finished, "what do you expect from me?"

Bruce lifted his head up in confusion and watched as she looked back up at him in return. "Expect from you?" he dared to ask, "I'm not really sure what you mean."

"It's just—I don't have anything left to offer," she told him, "I've given you everything I can..."

He understood what she was trying to tell him, that love was the final thing that she had ever had to offer him and now that she had... Bruce didn't give that any further thought before he lifted a hand out of the water and brushed the back of his hand across her cheek, "Natasha...I want to be with you because you give me something that—that nobody else can."

The redhead rested her body further on top of his and Bruce watched with heart pounding fascination as she rested both her arms over his chest and then planted her chin on top of where her hands met. She was looking him straight in the eye with utter curiosity before her voice met his ears again, "What do I give you?"

Bruce couldn't help but smile because she really couldn't seem to understand it. "You give me a reason to want to keep going..." he admitted, "you make me happy to be alive...for the first time in a long time." The look on her face was one of sheer wonder and he finally managed to relax again with her on top of him, "Natasha...you've let me see you, the real you..."

Her eyebrow quirked up and her smile was a little impish as her eyes shifted towards her chest and then back to his face before she interrupted him, "I'd say so."

He felt his shoulders shake from silent laughter in an instant when she reminded him that she _was_ currently completely naked and laying on top of him. It wasn't what he meant and he knew that she understood that but he appreciated her humor nonetheless. Her leg shifted slightly and his breath caught in his throat. Given the slightly devilish look she wore he had a feeling she did it on purpose to remind him that she wasn't the only one who was naked.

Natasha took that as an opportunity to speak again, "So you're asking me if I want us to be together? Not just have the occasional moment where one of us winds up in the other's bed and not just spur of the moment lip locks when the urge hits? Though I do enjoy those."

Bruce chuckled, "Yeah...that's what I'm asking."

"What if I said I wanted to get away from all of this?" came her question and he watched as she closed her eyes in thought, "not forever, but even just for a little while..."

This felt vaguely familiar and the words she once said to him, Bruce couldn't quite help saying back to her now, "I'll run with it, with you. If running's the plan...then as far as you want."

Her eyes opened instantly and met his and her smile was one of the most genuine he had ever seen. "That a promise?" she questioned.

"It's a promise," Bruce assured her with a chuckle, "but...after we figure out those nanites."

"Suppose that's a fair deal," she agreed.

Bruce narrowed his eyes at her, "You still haven't actually answered the question, you know that right?"

Natasha released the tiniest laugh, "Bruce, I am _naked,_ I am on top of you, and we are in the damned bath together." That ridiculous reminder had him biting his lip to keep from grinning. "I think it's safe to say that I'd like that," she finally said aloud. "Unless you needed proof?" came her next question and his breath caught in his throat when she leaned up and closer to his face.

"N-no," he stated quickly, "I don't—I don't need proof."

"Are you sure?" and she almost purred the word out, so much so that his heart almost stopped rather than pumping into overdrive.

Bruce felt his entire body stiffen as her hand traveled up to his face, then into his hair—

And then his head was shoved under the water abruptly.

When he resurfaced it was to see Natasha sitting at the opposite end of the tub with a Cheshire cat-sized grin and he just spit a little water out before he shook his head and chuckled. It was rare to see a playful side to her and it was something he wished he could see more of.

"So," Natasha hummed out innocently and he fought another smile as she tilted her head to the side, "do _you_ want to be together?"

He had to force himself to use his most serious tone, "You know, I'm gonna have to think about that for a while." Given the amusement playing on her face he knew she wasn't buying it. "Yeah—no, no...probably not," he added next and even he couldn't take himself seriously, "I mean...I already got you naked in the tub so—"

The laugh that came from her lips was priceless and he sputtered when she splashed water at him. "Funny man," she hummed out with a smile.

"There's nothing I want more," Bruce assured her next.

"Okay then," Natasha agreed. He waited patiently as she slowly waded her way back over top of him with that devilish little smile. "Then we're together," she said softly. She was a fraction of a breath away from putting her lips to his when he flicked his finger in the water. Her eyes were wide with surprise when the water hit her face but her breathy little laugh was beautiful just before she planted her lips against his regardless.

It was simple, it was chaste, and then she rested back at his side again with her head on his shoulder.

"I suppose wherever we go when we leave we'll have to make a room for Tony to stay in," she tacked on after a few minutes, "to be frank you're lucky I joined you—two birds with one stone really. We'd certainly solve his no-knock policy and he couldn't make fun of you for taking a bath given that I'm in it with you."

Bruce snorted out a laugh immediately.

* * *

It was only a few days back and Natasha sat curled up on the couch in the theater room wearing one overly large Stark Industries sweater and an equally too large pair of sweatpants. It was the first time since being back that she didn't feel an overabundance of pain, that she didn't have a fever and that she wasn't hallucinating and she was taking the opportunity to watch Gone With the Wind.

The smell of food hit her nose and her stomach growled to remind her that she hadn't actually properly eaten a thing since before Ross attacked the Avenger's facility two weeks prior. When she turned to the doorway she quirked an eyebrow up as Steve came in with two plates, one of which he handed to her over the top of the couch.

The plate of pasta looked absolutely divine and she smiled at the supersoldier as he came around and sat down next to her with his own plate. She gave him a more heartfelt smile before she twirled the fork into the pasta and took a bite. It tasted as good as it looked, though she supposed that's what happened when you were actually starving.

"I wasn't sure you'd actually eat it," Steve admitted with relief.

Natasha chuckled after she swallowed the bite and she glanced at him, "I forgot I was hungry until I actually smelled it." She was even more thrilled when they ate in companionable silence and watched the movie throughout it and she ate far more of it than she actually thought she could fit.

"Didn't Stark have someone go and basically buy you a whole new wardrobe yesterday?" he questioned a few minutes after they had finished eating.

"Yeah," she admitted with a smile, "but honestly everything still kind of hurts right now so this is more comfortable."

Steve chuckled at her, "Fair enough."

She watched Steve take her plate, put it on top of his, then place both on the coffee table. "Thanks for that by the way," she tacked on.

"Somebody had to do it," Steve told her and she smirked when he put an arm around her shoulders, "from spending six months with you I know for a fact that once you had your appetite back the first thing you'd wind up eating was a disgusting mess of junk food."

"Probably true," she agreed.

"So where's Banner? Last couple days he's been attached to your side—or you've been attached to his, not really sure which is which."

Natasha laughed a little at the comment. "He went to Cho's lab with Tony," she answered. In fact he had been gone for the last twelve hours. "Probably going to be spending most his time there or in the lab here," she added, "the man sleeps even less than I do which is impressive."

"The nanites?" Steve questioned.

"Mmhmm," she agreed.

"Are you okay, Nat?"

Natasha glanced over at Steve and she sighed, "I don't know."

She wasn't quite sure what his reaction to her honesty would be but all he did was smile as he responded, "You're not coming back are you?"

For a moment she was quiet but finally she relented, "I don't think so."

Steve gave a small nod, "I sort of had the feeling you wanted to say that six months ago."

"Yeah...guess I did," she admitted, "but after this..."

"Can't say I blame you," Steve told her, "I think you have a pretty good reason to stop fighting. Not a lot of people would do what you two did for each other."

"Is that crazy?" Natasha dared to ask him. She released a sigh before she mumbled out her own opinion, "It feels crazy."

Steve chuckled at her, "I think you needed a little crazy."

That was probably true. She spent her entire life walking a narrow line of rules, boundaries and burying emotions so far into the back of her mind that they were near impossible to find. Bruce was something crazy, irrational and unexpected. He brought out everything that she had hid and more—something she was entirely okay with and that surprised her even further. "Maybe I did," she agreed after a beat.

"What are we watching?" Steve finally asked.

Natasha snickered, "Gone With the Wind. It's a classic, Steve. It may not be as old as you but you're just gonna have to get used to that."

"Very funny."

"If it makes you feel better then I can switch to the history channel or we could go to the museum, look at some fossils," she suggested.

His laugh was genuine and Natasha chuckled.

More of a surprise was when Rhodey, Sam, Wanda and Vision all came flooding into the room with cups, bottles of soda and popcorn. She quirked an eyebrow up as they all took seats around the room and she barely hid the smile as drinks were poured, popcorn was passed around and pathetic little jokes and laughter ensued between the group.

Not one of them brought up the 'how are you's or 'do you need anything's. They left well enough alone and she was grateful for that and for their company even if she refused to admit it out loud.

* * *

Bruce quirked an eyebrow up as he and Tony found Clint staring into the theater room with his arms folded and a slightly nostalgic look.

Before he or Tony had a chance to look at what he was looking at the archer spoke, "You guys remember when that used to be us in there with those two?"

Bruce blinked a few times in curiosity before he looked through the doorway with Tony.

There was Natasha, Steve and the rest of the new Avengers crew all gathered up and watching one of his favorite movies, one of Natasha's too, and he smiled a little when he saw Wanda and Natasha both laugh as Rhodey threw popcorn at Sam for something he said. Steve and Vision were apparently upkeeping the 'mature member' status of the group, merely smiling and shaking their heads.

"You guys remember when we'd do something stupid and all we would usually get out of Red there was a tiny little 'you're all a bunch of dumbasses' smile?" Tony questioned.

Bruce grinned. He had been on the receiving end of that smile more than a few times.

"We grew on her," Tony stated casually and his next comment came with an overabundance of confidence, " _we_ are the reason why she can laugh with them now."

He followed after the other two men as they headed for the lounge and he took a seat on the couch as Clint grabbed three beers and joined himself and Tony.

Bruce could only shrug and accept when Clint popped the cap off and handed him one of the beers.

"So, in other news," Tony stated as he took one of the beers as well, "Pepper said yes."

Bruce snickered when Clint choked on his first sip of beer. "You finally asked her?" he questioned his best friend.

"I did," Tony admitted, "Barton I might need to borrow your kid that's still in diapers. I have a feeling that's the next thing she'll be aiming for and I wanna know what I'm getting myself into here before it's brought up."

"Oh no," Clint stated, "you aren't testing your paternal instinct on my kid."

Tony released a noise of disbelief, "It's the third one, Barton. Think of it this way, if I do something that scars him for life then I've got plenty of money to send him to therapy for it and you've still got the first two to fall back on."

Bruce snorted in an instant as Clint hooted out a laugh.

"Yeah, I'm sure Laura would be thrilled to hear that you're at least willing to pay for the therapy costs of emotionally tormenting our son," Clint commented with a grin as he took a sip of beer, "but somehow I don't think Natasha would be so accepting given he's her namesake."

"Huh..." Tony hummed out, "hadn't thought of that."

Bruce shook his head with a smile as he sipped his beer before he asked the question, "So how did you ask her?"

"Well I didn't do it on two knees since Red told me once that constituted as begging," Tony informed them and Clint snickered into his beer. "Dumm-E brought up breakfast in bed. He was supposed to put the ring on top of the whipped cream on the pancakes..." he admitted.

Bruce hid his grin behind his beer bottle when he saw where this was going, "Why do I have a feeling this didn't go the way you planned?"

"Do things ever go the way I plan?" he quipped before he explained what happened, "instead he put the tray down, the ring was stuck to this little bit of whipped cream on his clamp, he swung it around and the ring hit her right in the forehead."

Clint was howling.

Bruce leaned forward and put his hand on his forehead, shaking his head as he tried not to laugh.

"So naturally I tried to play that off, do the whole one knee thing," Tony explained next, "and instead I fell off the bed and took the whole food tray with me."

And that was where Bruce lost it. He laughed before he could stop himself.

"Meanwhile she's just got this ring in her hand because she caught it after it hit her. So after I finally get up, I've got a pancake stuck to my nipple, whipped cream in my belly button and that crazy woman is just grinning at me," Tony told them with a doting grin, "and I won't even go into what we did after because I did _not_ have to shower that food off me—"

"Aww, no! No!" he and Clint cried out at once as the billionaire laughed.

Tony was still snickered as he drank the beer again before he spoke, "The point is she said yes. So obviously Bruce, I'll need you to be my best man, though honestly I debated Romanoff because if I freak the hell out she would make a hell of a getaway driver if she didn't just kick my ass into submission first."

Bruce chuckled as Clint snickered.

"I also debated letting her be a groomsman but that idea fell flat because honestly she'd probably look better than me in a tux and that just isn't allowed," Tony stated with a shrug, "plenty of time to figure out the details though."

"Congratulations man," Clint finally offered up.

Bruce just couldn't help himself as he smirked, "Only you could throw a ring in a woman's face, ruin breakfast in bed by falling off it and taking all the food with you, and still get a yes in the end...so yeah, definitely congratulations."

Tony grinned, "It's an art form, Bruce."

"Uh-huh, sure it is," Bruce mumbled with a smile.

"So, you and Red aired out all the mushy feelings," Tony reminded him before he asked the question, "that mean you'll ask her eventually?"

He heard Clint cough and Bruce himself choked on his beer this time.

"That's uh—that's..." Bruce swallowed dryly, "um...no, no—I...no."

Tony was damn near hysterical and he could see Clint's eyes twinkling with amusement.

"I didn't mean it _that_ way—just...why would you even ask me that?" Bruce groaned out, "I can't think about that _now_. This just—this whole thing with us just started again."

Clint was chuckling, "He's just trying to forget about his own nerves by watching you flounder, Banner."

And that was the moment he realized he had rather persistently said no in front of Natasha's best friend. He groaned, "I swear I didn't mean no I wouldn't want to...I just—I meant..."

"Relax," Clint told him with a laugh, "I knew what you meant and I solemnly swear not to tell Nat how vehemently you said no when Tony brought it up."

He felt the heat rise to his face in an instant.

"This calls for more beer," Clint called out and Bruce watched as the archer went and got them all another.

He had planned to come back, get into bed and stay there with Natasha until morning. She hadn't reclaimed her old room since they had gotten back. Instead he would come back from Tony's lab and always find her curled up in his bed, in his clothes, and it was something he was hoping would never change. He could get used to it, to waking up with her every morning after what little sleep he did get, to seeing her eyes flutter open and seeing nothing but sleep weighing on them rather than the horrors of the past.

But this wasn't so bad either and he took the second beer that Clint handed over to him.

Then the archer threw down a pack of cards on the table, "Poker?"

* * *

Bruce was more than a little stunned when he went to enter the kitchen and found Wanda in there. He was torn for a moment between how much he wanted to get himself tea and Natasha coffee and how much he preferred to avoid the brunette who was drinking a glass of orange juice.

He blew out a breath but he had a feeling if he retreated and told Natasha then she would give him a look of disappointment so he bit the bullet and walked into the kitchen, heading directly for the stove. Wanda didn't say a word as he boiled tea and put the coffee on, the young woman just continued drinking her orange juice and refused to look in his direction. He glanced over at her a few times before he realized that she looked more uncomfortable than he felt.

In fact Wanda looked nervous as she tapped her finger on the glass.

Bruce blew out a sigh before he spoke up, "Do you want coffee? Or tea?"

He saw her look up in surprise, wide-eyed with a deer in the headlights look, so he gave her the smallest smile as reassurance.

He held up the kettle and the coffee pot. "Coffee?" he questioned, raising the pot. "Tea?" he tried next, raising the kettle instead. "Coffee? Tea?" and he repeated it one more time until she smiled.

"Tea would be nice."

Bruce put the coffee pot back down on the warmer and instead made two mugs of tea, clutching both by the handles in one hand as he pulled milk from the fridge and brought it over to the island counter top with him. He placed both mugs down, nudging one towards Wanda as he placed the milk down between them and took a seat across from her.

"Thank you..." she stated quietly. He had gotten so used to the Avengers, to people who weren't afraid of him, that he almost forgot what it was like to be around someone who was.

Wanda was wearily adding milk to her tea and he sipped at his own mug for a moment before he finally spoke, "I make you nervous."

"Sorry," she apologized quickly, "I was nervous around the others at first too after..."

"I get it," Bruce assured her.

"You know...they were never angry at me," Wanda suddenly mentioned wistfully, "I thought that—that they would hate me but instead they took me in. Trained me. Helped me."

Bruce couldn't help but smile at that. Admittedly he _had_ been angry at her, despised her, had even wanted to kill her after what she did. He still didn't quite relish that moment. "We seem to have this thing for second chances around here," he told her after a beat, "sometimes third chances...or special cases with Tony—fifty or so chances."

Wanda chuckled.

"Point is...we're a group that understands making mistakes," he told her, "we make them all the time. Tony moreso than the rest of us." Again Wanda smiled. "What you did—it was bad," he told her, "but you thought we were the bad guys, you thought you were doing the right thing."

"That doesn't really make it any better," Wanda admitted. "See...I was just bringing out the things that I knew would draw out the biggest reactions. Fears..." she explained, "I just...I didn't realize that while the rest of you just saw nightmares? She lived her nightmares...I didn't know..."

Bruce frowned, "Natasha?"

"Yeah...but—but she doesn't hate me and I feel like she's the only one besides you who definitely should. She didn't look at me like I was a terrible person just like you're not right now," Wanda mentioned with a sigh before she sipped the tea. "She understood even when Steve didn't that words just wouldn't make things better. She worked with me, trained me, let me get it out of my system physically _against_ her." Wanda looked thoughtful as she stared down into her tea. "And now you're here making me tea," she tacked on, "I guess...I just never knew how easily people could forgive."

Bruce shrugged a little at her comment, "You spent a lot of your life locked down by Strucker, right?" At her solemn nod he sighed, "That's why Natasha will never hold it against you, why none of us will." He could see her confusion. "Natasha knows what it's like to have people control your every move and make you think that what you're doing is the right thing to do, not that she'll ever tell you it wasn't her fault," he explained, "and most of us know what it's like to be someone else's lab experiment. Recent events proving that point rather vividly."

"I suppose that's true..." Wanda added.

He was a little more thoughtful now, "I did hate you."

"I know."

He chuckled, "I suppose you did...and that can't be easy, feeling what other people feel."

"Most times I can block it out," Wanda assured him, "but sometimes people feel things so strongly that it's in my head before I can comprehend it. Like Natasha...and you."

Bruce raised both his eyebrows up at her, "I'm almost afraid to ask for an example."

"It's not always a bad thing," Wanda told him with a smile, "like the way you feel about her...and the way she feels about you." She sighed, "I never meant for what happened because of what I did. I never meant for—"

"I believe you," Bruce told her.

The next minute was awkwardly quiet and the abrupt interruption was actually welcomed.

"Wondered where you went."

Bruce glanced up to see Natasha in the doorway, finally dressed in clothes her own size, and he assumed she had likely been there for a few minutes and had been allowing them to talk before she interrupted when things got quiet. She was casually glancing between himself and Wanda but she didn't look concerned in the slightest.

"You've only slept three hours in two days, Bruce. I'm not letting you go back to either lab until you've gotten some decent rest," she informed him in a tone that told him he wasn't allowed to argue the matter.

Suddenly the realization hit him that Natasha caring about his well-being in more than just a life or death situation was included in the full package of their relationship. He couldn't help but smile a little as he glanced down for a beat before he stood up with his tea and agreed for the simple reason that she could and _would_ physically stop him from going anywhere else but back to bed, "Alright."

Wanda stayed quiet as he went to get the coffee he had originally been coming to get but Natasha's voice stopped him, "I'll get it." He gave a sigh before he turned and headed towards the door instead and he only paused when she gripped his arm, "I know you just want to figure this all out...but I'm _fine_."

"I get it, I get it," he assured her, though he wasn't sure it would make him sleep any easier until he had answers.

He made it out the door and paused just outside of their view as Natasha went in for the coffee he had started.

"I thought he would still hate me."

Natasha's voice acknowledged her quickly and easily, "A few weeks ago I thought he would still hate me too—and he did hate me, I know that, he admitted as much when he found me in India. Sometimes I'm afraid he still does even if he won't say it and I'd deserve it if he did." His heart sunk a little at her words. "He doesn't, I know he doesn't because he's a surprisingly forgiving person but I guess sometimes I'm too scary and damaged to remember it in every single moment, so sometimes I think that maybe he won't come back, that he'll remember he hated me and hate me all over again."

She said it all so casually, something he was sure only Natasha could do when talking about being afraid that someone might just up and leave her, but he also understood what she meant. She knew he wasn't going to the lab and actually never coming back, she knew it was an irrational fear. It was the same illogical fear he had when he couldn't sleep most nights, when he would just lay there for hours and watch her chest rise and fall because he didn't _know_ what was inside of her and what it might do to her. And it was something they didn't talk about because neither of them quite knew how to bring it up, so it just lingered silently and deafeningly between them.

"We're all scary and damaged," Wanda replied.

And of that Bruce had absolutely no doubt in the world.

"Around here that might just be an understatement," Natasha quipped.

"Good night, Natasha."

"Night, Wanda."

Bruce waited until Natasha stepped outside and given the way she tilted her head at him but gave no indication of surprise, he could only assume that she knew he had never actually left, that her telling Wanda about that fear was her way of airing out one of the things between them without actually having to say it directly to him.

She just smiled.

And he followed her down the hall without hesitation while he tried to speak the words he wanted to, "I don't—I wouldn't..."

"I know you don't," Natasha assured him before he could even finish saying he didn't hate her and wouldn't just up and leave her. She glanced back at him with a more reassuring smile, "I know."

* * *

 **Hopefully won't be long before I'm feeling better, so hopefully only a few days before the final chapter where I'll officially announce the name of the final story of this trilogy!**


	19. Chapter 19

As per usual, I can't make enough apologies for how long it took to give you the final chapter of this story. I got a new job and was working both just a week after I posted the previous chapter. I'm officially only working the one job and...dun dun dun...it's only four days a week as opposed to the seven days a week I was previously working. You guys know what that means! Much more time for me to write. And this final chapter is extra long because of the delay.

 **Chapter 18** :

" _We settle for living in misery,  
afraid of change,  
of crumbling into ruins..."_

"Stop doing that," Natasha muttered without opening her eyes. There was silence for a moment besides the rapid beating of a heart and she finally opened one eye to look up at Bruce whose shoulder her head was currently resting on.

He looked almost guilty even as he replied, "Doing what?"

"Watching me," she told him with a sigh as she rolled onto her back and closed her eyes again.

"I like watching you," Bruce insisted with a chuckle.

She squinted her eyes open as she frowned, "You barely sleep. You lay there most of the night, every night, pretending...but really you're just watching me, like you're afraid that if you close your eyes for even one moment then I might not be breathing when you wake up or something."

He was quiet and she knew that _he_ knew she was right. Apparently he wasn't going to lie, though she supposed that was because not too many people were stupid enough to lie to an expert in the craft of lying, that and he happened to be a _terrible_ liar.

"I get it," she told him as she stared up at the ceiling, "but I can't keep this up anymore."

Bruce still wasn't saying anything and she sighed before she turned her head to look at him. She couldn't help her confusion when she found his eyes looking everywhere else but her. He looked to the wall. To the ceiling. To the headboard...but never at her.

"What are you doing?" she questioned in baffled curiosity.

"I'm actively _not_ looking at you."

The laugh bubbled out from her lips before she could help herself and then she swiftly pulled her pillow out from under her head and threw it on top of him, "You're hilarious but that doesn't get you off the hook."

Natasha could barely contain her smile as he slowly, _very slowly_ , inched his entire body closer to hers. He was making the entire mattress move with every tiny and ridiculous flop closer and she couldn't quite stop the way her shoulders started shaking from silent laughter. She supposed that was one of the things she actually enjoyed about being with him though, that she didn't actually feel the need to try and control her reactions around him, something that used to only pertain to Clint and his family, and that he could make her laugh so easily when she had spent most of her life barely cracking a real smile.

"Sleep deprivation has made you even dorkier than usual," she told him when he turned on his side and put an arm around her waist. "Laura and the kids want me to go visit them," she told him when he rested his head on her shoulder, "they've been asking for a while."

"We still don't know what that injection did to you, Nat," came Bruce's reminder, "we don't know what was in the nanites or even what they're effecting."

She sighed as she rolled him onto his back and then sat up, running her hands over her face and then her hair. His attempt to tell her not to go see Clint's family got her annoyed with him all over again. "One month, Bruce. It's been a month," she reminded him in turn, "it was fine at first, really it was, but now I'm tired of everyone walking on eggshells if I walk into a room. I'm tired of Steve thinking that I need him to comfort me, to put his arm around me, and having to placate him because it's _him_ who needs the comfort when I don't really want to be touched _._ I'm tired of Tony cracking jokes that aren't funny because it's making _him_ feel better. I'm tired of the team looking at me like I might spontaneously combust when they think I'm not looking. I'm _tired_ of you laying there for eight hours and barely sleeping because you're afraid that if you look away, even just for a second, then I might be dead when you open your eyes."

Bruce looked looked somewhat hurt as he sat up as well and his attempt to deny it fell flat, "That's not..." He sighed and then he mimicked her previous move as he rubbed at his own face, a motion that she now realized she had picked up from him. "Wait you're—you're mad?" he questioned with a befuddled expression, "you got injected with nano machines that have some unknown purpose and you're _mad_ at me because it scares the living hell out of me?"

"I'm not fragile, Bruce and I know that I have my issues but I'm _not_ broken," she told him as she stood up and she could see the somewhat perturbed look growing on his face, "I can't sleep because _you're_ freaking out and it's driving me crazy."

"It's not even rational to be mad at me for being worried, Natasha," Bruce told her with obvious frustration as his brow wrinkled, "that's not fair."

"You're the one who wanted that honesty policy and that's how _I_ feel. So since my feelings _aren't_ fair then I'm going to go to Clint's with him. A least there only one person is going to look at me like being alive is absolutely astounding and that's because he's under a year old and hiding your face behind your hands and saying peekaboo makes him think that you just pulled off the world's best Houdini act in history _,"_ she told him as she rubbed at her eyes, "and now I'm going to my own room because—because I'm tired, I'm exhausted, and when I wake up it won't be next to someone who is _just_ as exhausted and looking at me like I'm some magical unicorn that just pissed a damned rainbow."

Bruce just stared at her, wide-eyed, confused and a tidbit mad with her, and Natasha would be damned but even she wasn't too sure where all of that came from so she rubbed at her face again before she headed for the bedroom door and she only stopped when Bruce's hand grasped her arm, "Natasha, wait..."

"I just want to sleep," she told him as she pulled her arm from his hand, "I want to sleep with nobody staring at me, nobody in the room worrying." She placed her hand over his heart as she stared at his chest before she glanced up and met his eyes before she softly told him the truth, "Your heart races all night long, did you know that? I can feel it. I can hear it." She pulled her hand away and shook her head as she headed down the hall but she could hear Bruce following her so she continued, "And I've tried really hard not to say anything because at first I just thought it was you being nervous with me all over again, then I just figured you needed time to realize that I'm fine because I _am_ fine...but you're not relaxing. It's like you don't even know how anymore."

"You want to fight about this and then just walk away?" Bruce questioned and now she could tell he was most definitely angry, "that's not fair and you know it. You want to get mad at me for worrying when you act like every little thing you do might make me lose control and Hulk out?"

"Because _you_ act like that," Natasha growled out as she prodded him in the chest. "I do that for you, not for me! You act like if I so much as touch you the wrong way, look at you the wrong way, or undress too damn fast that the Big Guy is just going to bust out. And so what if he does?"

"Are you out of your mind?" came Bruce's disbelief, "you don't see a problem with that?"

"Frankly, no," she informed him with a huff of a laugh, "Bruce, you and him... _both_ of you—you never gave up trying to protect me in Sri Lanka. He saved my life. _You_ saved my life. You are _not_ a monster...and neither is he."

The way her eyes stung was frustrating and she closed them for a moment to regain control, frustration building up when he once again impeded her from getting further away by grabbing her hand. He certainly had balls of steel because if anyone else did that, especially as many times as he had, she would have them on the floor on their back. The look she gave him must have been enough because he let go in an instant like her skin had burned him.

"You got up. You got up over, and over, and over again..." she murmured out, "and when it was all over I was the one who had to sit over _your_ dead body. I was the one who had to see the only person that I've ever..." She stared at him as she took a deep breath and they stood not far from the door to leave his apartment in the tower, "I'm the one who should be afraid to wake up and see you not breathing, _me_ , because I lived it, I still live it every night when I actually do fall asleep."

Bruce was silenced it seemed because he was looking at her with his lips parted slightly and his eyes a little wider.

Natasha stepped towards him and placed her hands on either side of his face. "You're supposed to be the _one_ person I never had to worry about dying," she told him softly, "you joke and you say that you're bulletproof but you're not— _you're not_ and that scares me. It scares me because I can't lose you, because I finally feel like a person for the first time in my life and that's _your_ fault." He was staring at her still, confused and horrified, bewildered by how much she was saying. "You did this to me."

"Natasha..."

"You did this to me and I couldn't breathe. I couldn't breathe and I couldn't speak because you made me love you and you _died_."

He looked absolutely horrified by the way her voice cracked as that final word left her lips.

"So no, I don't see a problem with my not caring if the Big Guy decides to pop out on occasion because he may not be you, Bruce, but he's a part of you. I don't just care about you, I care about him _just_ as much. He's the reason you're alive and that I'm alive, so if I can lay in that bed and not stare you down until you crack then you can do the same for me," she mumbled out as she moved to the door and opened it. She paused, feeling a little bad for the way he looked guilty and upset before she decided to let him off the hook for being afraid, to extend the olive branch even though she had practically just beat him down with it, "You could uh—you could come with me you know...to Clint's."

"I..."

"If you want to," she tacked on softly.

Bruce looked both relieved and yet uncertain by her offer before he answered, "It's just...I've got a lot to do in the lab."

Natasha couldn't help the scoff as she shook her head with the annoyance flaring up again before muttering, "Of course you do." She hadn't meant to say it out loud, but as per usual he dragged things out of her when normally she would be in complete control. So she tried to make up for that blunder, "Just please...when I come back, stop looking at me like that."

She left before he could say anything else, before he could stop her, shutting the door quietly behind her.

* * *

Clint opened his eyes when light streamed into the room. He recognized the weight on the opposite side of the bed, though it had been well over a year since he'd had to recognize it. Really though the only person besides Laura and the kids who could come into a room while he slept without his mind going into danger mode was Natasha, whom was resting beside him now. He turned his head to the side to look at her. She was on her side with her head on the pillow, her hands rested right next to her face and her knees were bent up close towards her stomach.

Her eyes popped open to look back at him and he narrowed his eyes at her before he mumbled the words out, "You're in my bed."

"It's six in the morning, go back to sleep."

He quirked an eyebrow up when she rolled away from him and his sleep muddled mind knew there was a reason she was there. Even so he decided not to question it so he closed his eyes, let it go, and did as she said. If she had wanted to talk about it then she would have, he just had to wait her out as per usual until she decided that she wanted to get it off her chest.

And the next time he woke she was gone.

Clint glanced over at the clock, saw the ' _8:04am_ ' on staring back at him and sat up. He groaned, grumbled, then half hung upside down off the bed as he pulled his duffelbag out from underneath it.

It only took him a whopping ten minutes to get himself dressed, packed, and out of the room to head home. His partner was nowhere to be found when he went looking. Bruce's room held no answer, Natasha's room was the same. The kitchen was clear, training room clear, theater room clear, lounge clear.

"FRIDAY, where's Natasha?" he finally asked with a relenting sigh.

"In the garage, Mr. Barton."

He gave the smallest shrug as he took the elevator down to the garage and sure enough Natasha was there, leaning against his car, a black duffel at her feet.

"About time, I had FRIDAY tell me when you got up."

Clint quirked an eyebrow up at her for the second time that morning as he unlocked the car while heading towards her. He shifted his gaze from her face to the bag at her feet but he didn't question it as he grabbed her bag, opened the trunk, then threw it inside with his own. Last time he had tried to bring up her coming back with him she'd said no, yet here she was now without warning. "Well, I spent half my time trying to find you to tell you I was leaving," he told her as he closed the trunk.

"Surprise," she replied with a smirk.

He chuckled as she got into the passenger's seat and he got into the driver's. He didn't ask her why and she didn't offer up a reason for why she was suddenly coming along, sort of like an unspoken agreement. He wasn't going to complain, Laura wanted to see her and the kids kept asking when she would come back, at least now he didn't have to deal with those questions.

And they drove in comfortable but complete silence the entire way. He played music, she sat with her feet up on the dash and other than, 'what do you want for lunch?' and a discussion about burgers or pizza, no words were spoken.

Half a day and two car switches to his beat up pick-up truck later and they were finally home. He saw Laura watch them pull up through the window and he grabbed both their bags from the trunk on the principle that Natasha was going to need both arms soon enough. He was proven right because they were only half way to the front door when it was thrown open and two small blurs came running.

"Auntie Nat!"

Clint grinned in an instant because he could see his partner preparing for impact.

 _Bam_.

Cooper, Lila and Natasha all went down in the grass laughing and he grinned as he walked up to Laura and gave her a kiss. "Better her than me," he whispered slyly.

Laura gave him her usual smile and shake of her head, "Liar. You're jealous."

"True," Clint told her with a chuckle

"She okay?" came Laura's question.

It was a good question. "She was mostly fine, back to her usual pretend nothing is wrong self. Then this morning I wake up and she's sleeping on the other side of the bed," he admitted with a sigh, "so probably not."

His wife's next comment made him grin, "You're lucky I'm not the jealous type."

Clint couldn't help his laugh as he took Nathaniel from Laura's arms and then he gave his son a dirty look when his son giggled, then reached his arm out for the woman he was named for. "Does this seem fair to you?" he asked Laura, "he's seen her twice since we gave him life and he already likes her more than us."

" _We_ gave him life?" his wife scoffed. "It's a fact, Clint. Kids always love their aunts more than their parents, apparently even when they're under a year old," she stated with a shrug.

He chuckled as he took the writhing kid over towards the laughing pile of limbs and bodies that were his kids and Natasha. He plopped the baby on her chest, "One more wanted to join the hugdown."

The wide smile she had was worth it and Clint chuckled as he sat down on the steps with Laura and put an arm around her.

"I thought she'd bring Doctor Banner when she finally came," Laura mentioned, "you said they were inseparable."

Her comment brought the actual issue to light and he could have facepalmed right there, "That's why..."

"Hm?"

"Why I woke up and she was in my bed," Clint informed her, "I'm gonna guess they had a fight."

Laura inclined her head slightly before she laid it on his shoulder, "Why can you see the details of every little thing but when it comes to her, you can't tell your ass from your head?"

He chuckled, "Been asking myself that for eleven years."

"She didn't say anything?"

"Nope...only conversation we had was about what to eat on the way home."

Laura smirked, "Must be girl talk then."

Clint narrowed his eyes at her, "Sex talk?"

"It's the 'why we want to kill men' talk," his wife answered. He cringed at her next comment, "Like when you say you're going to _fix_ something, and then proceed to spend three years revamping an entire room of the house."

"That's a clear exaggeration," he reminded her, "it was two years, eleven months and four days."

Laura snickered and smack his shoulder. "Go collect your evil spawn and put them to bed, I'll see what's going on."

"And then tell me."

"That is _not_ how girl talk works," Laura reminded him with a laugh and he found himself shoved off the steps, "Go."

"Yeah yeah, you're so forceful," Clint murmured adoringly as he headed over to save his best friend from the clutches of his children. "Alright you bunch of crazies, mom let you wait up but it is _well_ past bed time!"

"Noooo!" and Clint chuckled as both his kids whined the word out.

"Come on, come on, plenty of time to beat up Aunt Nat tomorrow when you wake up," he told them as he plucked Lila up on his shoulder. Cooper thankfully got up of his own volition and Clint chuckled as he hugged his son to his side for a moment. "And...last one," he stated, holding his free arm out for Nathaniel.

Natasha shot him a dirty look before she stood up with his youngest, the baby still giggling at the antics that ensued even as she finally handed him over. He chuckled as she leaned over, gave each of his kids an exaggerated kiss, then she gave Clint himself an equally exaggerated one on his cheek that had the kids all laughing.

He made sure to give her his own death glare, "You did that because I have no hand to wipe my face with."

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

Clint rolled his eyes as he went into the house with Cooper leading the way.

* * *

"So, what's wrong?"

Natasha moved to the stairs where Laura was still sitting and she shoved hers and Clint's bags aside as she sat down next to her. Of course Laura knew, Laura always knew. So she let it out. "What if—what if what I think is love, really is love...but it just happened so fast and so—so out of control that..." she paused in thought for a moment before she continued, "that it already burned out?"

For a good minute Laura was quiet and when Natasha finally looked over at her she knew why. Laura had been waiting for her to actually look at her before she answered, "I wasn't there so I only know what I've been told but Nat...love doesn't burn out like that. The lengths you two went through for each other? That's the sort of love that most people only dream they'll find one day."

Natasha gave the smallest nod to that before she shook her head right after, "Then why did I just pick the dumbest fight that I could before I left without actually saying goodbye?"

The laugh that came from Laura's lips was completely unexpected. "Because you love him. I pick fights with Clint over whether or not to put garlic in the pasta sauce," she admitted with a chuckle before explaining it, "it's not because I actually care about the garlic. It's a girl thing, we like to make sure we can get a reaction out of them, if we don't we take it as some sign that they've stopped caring."

Strange as it was, it actually sounded legitimate in a rather uniquely torturous way. "I yelled at him for watching me sleep," she admitted with a chuckle.

Laura's laugh was even harder this time. After a moment the other woman took a few breaths and Natasha snickered as Laura nudged her with her elbow, "Don't worry about it. It's just what we do."

"Yeah but I—it..it might have escalated," she admitted with a sigh as she rubbed at her face.

Laura was still smiling anyways, "It always does."

"It does?"

"Yes," Laura answered without hesitation, "we once had a fight about paint palettes that escalated into him sleeping on the couch for a week, then you guys had that thing in Berbarati that lasted a month."

Natasha snorted out a laugh in an instant, "I actually remember that. Every damn day he just kept complaining about how he 'didn't understand'."

"They never understand," Laura pointed out with a snicker.

"So...I'm not just weird?" she dared to ask.

"Oh, you're definitely weird." Natasha snorted at the certainty Laura said that with. "But in these circumstances you're actually a normal woman," Laura assured her with a laugh, "congratulations."

Natasha couldn't help but laugh as well. One thing she always appreciated about Laura was how frank the woman always was with her.

* * *

Bruce sat at the desk in the lab with his arms folded but most of what Tony said went in one ear and out the other. He supposed he spent far too long tapping his pen on the desk because something came from nowhere and hit him right in the forehead. "What the hell, Tony?" he groaned out as he watched a penny land on the desk, "you carry money that is less than a fifty dollar bill?"

Tony snickered, "That's cute, now what's your issue?"

"I don't have an issue."

The rather dramatic roll of his best friend's eyes proved that Tony didn't believe him. "Even your issues have issues, they're making your hair gray—grayer. Suppose you're not too worried about vanity though since you've got Natasha's undying devotion."

Bruce figured he must have either pulled a face or stayed quiet for too long.

"Uh oh, trouble in paradise?"

 _Understatement of the year._ Bruce tossed the pen down on the desk and sighed before he blurted it out, "I think we had a fight."

"Think?" Tony questioned with a chuckle, "or know?"

He scrunched up his nose in thought before he answered, "It's a little hard to tell with Natasha."

That brought a laugh out of Tony as his friend responded, "Undoubtedly." Tony kicked his feet up on the desk and leaned back in the chair. "Alright, shrink mode activated. Go ahead and tell me what happened," came the offer.

"It's just—she just..." Bruce frowned as he realized he wasn't entirely sure what it was even about, "I'm not really sure I even get it. She was pissed because I'm worried about her. About the nanites. And then it sort escalated..."

"Escalated?"

"Uh...it went from telling me I need to sleep more and worry less to yelling at me, telling me that it was my fault, that I made her love me and—and then I died," he finally mumbled out with a sigh of frustration, "so apparently because I stopped breathing I don't have the right to worry about her."

Tony was give him a pointed look before the billionaire smiled, "She pulled one of those."

"One of..." Bruce paused and ruffled his brow in confusion, "one of what?"

"Oh come on, you've dated before," Tony pointed out, "women have a tendency to take something small and then build it up, and up, and up until it turns into a damned skyscraper and you, my friend, fell from the top of a Russian one."

He groaned in an instant with the realization. "She baited me," he mumbled out.

"Oh yeah," Tony replied with a laugh, "and she got you good."

"Then she went to Barton's," Bruce mumbled out, "I mean she invited me but—"

Tony had one of those faces that told Bruce he clearly made another mistake. "She invited you?" he questioned. At his nod Tony asked another question, "And you...declined the invitation?"

Bruce narrowed his eyes in confusion, "We still haven't figured out what was in the—"

"And there's your issue," Tony told him with a chuckle and another eye roll, "she basically invited you to her version of a 'meet the parents'. Not that you haven't already met Clint's wife and kids, but you haven't done it in the relationship way which is what she was asking you to do."

 _Shit_...

"And you didn't go..." Tony pointed out.

"I didn't realize..."

"I know you didn't," Tony told him with a smirk, "so, need to borrow the jet?"

Bruce raised both his eyebrows up, "The jet?"

Tony shrugged, "Yeah, to go see your girlfriend and show her you didn't mean to blow off her attempt to include you in her family bonding since you didn't realize that's what she was doing."

"Should I?" he dared to ask, "I mean...do you think she wants me to _now_?"

"I'm pretty sure she would," Tony assured him, "women love those romantic gestures, even when one of those women is Natasha."

"Yeah," Bruce murmured with a shake of his head, "I'm sure chicks dig that."

Tony hooted out a laugh. "I'll have the jet gassed up for you," he assured him, "go whenever but don't let her stew too long or the romantic gesture gets a little lost in translation. Speaking from personal experience here."

"Duly noted..."

* * *

Clint stood on the porch after getting Tony's phone call earlier that Bruce was on his way. It was almost a relief to hear it because after seeing the forlorn look on her face if she was left alone in a room, he was certain only Bruce was going to be able to rid her of it. He knew he was going to have to get used to that new development, to the fact that some things Clint himself couldn't fix while Bruce _could_.

He waited a good twenty minutes out there with his arms folded before Bruce arrived in Tony's cloaked jet. It at least gave him time to think, to gather his opinions on Bruce coming here. He watched the scientist shuffle his way up to the house and Clint could only smile now because he knew Bruce's awkwardness was probably one of Natasha's favorite quirks. Now that Clint actually knew about that, he could look back and see how she found his dorky comments and odd humor endearing; that was the reason why he couldn't fathom how he never saw it before Ultron.

"Hey, Doc," Clint finally greeted the man as he got to the steps.

"Hey," came Bruce's greeting in return. "I know I um—I'm not exactly on the guest list," the other man mumbled out, "but..."

"But you love her," Clint finished with a chuckle, "don't worry, I get it." He shrugged as he pushed the front door open, "You're always welcome here, Bruce. She loves you, that makes you family and family always has an open invitation."

Bruce chuckled somewhat uncomfortably as he walked up the steps, "As long as she isn't still in the mood to put a knife in me—because she sort of had that look like she wanted to before she took off with you."

"First time getting that look?" Clint questioned with a laugh, "don't worry about it. She's wanted to do that to me on _many_ occasions over the years and I'm still here."

Bruce's laugh seemed a little more genuine now, "Appreciate the pick-me-up speech, Clint..."

Clint snickered as he followed Bruce inside the house, "Think that's the first time we've really gone with first names."

"It was weird," Bruce mentioned.

"Last names are better."

"Definitely," the scientist agreed.

Laura shushed them as they laughed in the foyer and Clint found both himself and Bruce glancing over in the direction his wife motioned to. Natasha was fast asleep facing the couch with Nathaniel tucked between her arm and the back of the couch, both snoring just slightly. It was always one of his favorite sights but as he looked at Bruce he could see the look of wonder on the man's face as he watched this side of Natasha. Aunt Natasha was a side of Natasha that not most people saw, it was a side of her that was unlike any other she had and Clint supposed it would take Bruce some time to get used to seeing it.

"Beer?" he offered up to the other man.

"Uh...yeah—yeah sure," he heard Bruce mumble out. He could see Bruce's surprise finally dissipate as the man's lips curled into the smallest smile at the sight before them. It took a minute for Bruce to take in the view before the man finally relented and followed himself and Laura to the kitchen. "I was too busy focusing on what they might have done to her in Sri Lanka and I forgot that it's me who needs the science...not her. She needed this."

"Nat doesn't exactly tell people what she needs," his wife mentioned with a smile as she collected each of them a beer, "but I have to admit I'm impressed by how quickly you catch on to what she needs. That's not an easy thing to do."

Clint snickered, "That's an understatement."

"Hush, Clint," Laura told him with a playful smack on the chest.

"He's not wrong," Bruce admitted with a sad smile, "I was never good at relationships before and I haven't really gotten much better at it now..."

Clint sipped at his beer as Laura's ever-knowing self talked with Bruce, "I know you think she's mad at you and maybe she is or was on some level, Doctor Banner—but she'll be glad to see you." Laura squeezed Bruce's shoulder before she spoke, "I'm happy you're here."

He chuckled as Bruce looked uncomfortable with Laura giving her usual warm smile.

"I'll go make sure that Thing One and Thing Two don't trample down and wake them. I don't need two grumps waking up from a nap early," Laura told them before she went upstairs.

"You guys have a fight?" Clint finally questioned.

"Sort of," Bruce admitted with a sigh. "Started as one thing...completely morphed into another," came the next admittance.

Clint snorted. "Women," he offered up with a shrug as he sipped his beer, "that's a skill they have down to a science."

"I noticed..." Bruce assured him with a chuckle.

He clinked his beer against Bruce's and watched the man slowly relax and smile over at him. "Don't worry, longest one of those 'not really a fight but morphed into an actual fight' fights ever lasted between Laura and myself was two months," he assured him.

Bruce choked on the beer he had just sipped and looked at him almost astounded, " _Two_ months?!"

Clint laughed, "Marriage, Bruce. For better or worse." Then he explained more properly, "Plus I was on a mission for half of that one."

A relieved laugh left the scientist's lips.

"I know Nat has her flaws, Banner...but don't let her drive you off," he warned the other man, "because eventually she will if you let her."

"I don't think I'll ever stop trying to figure her out," Bruce told him with a chuckle.

Clint smirked, "That makes two of us, Doc."

"Three actually, I'm still figuring myself out."

Clint froze with his beer to his lips as he looked over at Natasha in the doorway bouncing his yawning son on her hip. "Well, that's my hint," he mentioned as he placed the beer down. He stood up, clapped Bruce on the back in encouragement, then plucked the sleepy child from his partner before heading upstairs.

* * *

Bruce tapped his thumbs on his beer bottle uncomfortably as Natasha came into the kitchen and sat down in Clint's vacated seat. She also picked up his abandoned beer and took a sip. The friendship between those two was an odd one, though he supposed he wasn't really one to judge when his best friend was Tony Stark.

"Well...I didn't think you'd show up here," Natasha finally commented after a good minute or two of silence between them, "I thought you were busy at the lab."

"Natasha..." he murmured out

She didn't look mad or upset, she just looked intrigued by his appearance as her question left her lips, "So why did you come, Bruce?"

"I know you're mad at me but—but I didn't really want to leave it like that," he admitted with a small shrug as he studied her.

Natasha's eyes softened ever so slightly before she responded, "I'm only staying a few days, not forever."

"Yeah well...last time I showed up a few hours late you put a murder protocol back into your head and had Ross, Red Room and HYDRA chasing you," he reminded her, "can't exactly blame me for being cautious."

He hadn't meant to make her feel bad but he could see in Natasha's eyes that she did in an instant. "You're always telling me that you're not going anywhere, well I'm not going anywhere either...even when I'm mad I'll always come back."

Bruce couldn't help but a smile a little at that, "Me too."

"I was just tired, I didn't mean to actually go off on you," Natasha assured him after a beat.

"I know," he answered with a small smile, "but you weren't wrong, Natasha...I am afraid that if I fall asleep then I might wake up and find that you never made it back." He rubbed at his eyes before he spoke the truth, "I'm afraid that I'll open my eyes and whatever that stuff was will have killed you because I decided to take a damned nap..."

The smallest of breaths released from her lips and Bruce watched as she stood up and moved in front of him. "I know," she insisted, "and I know that you probably won't ever accept the Big Guy as a part of you..." Natasha gave the barest of shrugs and Bruce watched as she placed her hands on either side of his face before she spoke again, "But you willingly accept every part of me that I can't. Every flaw, even the things that make me hate myself...you accept those and I'm okay with that."

Bruce frowned slightly as he tried to decipher the meaning behind her words, "I don't get it..."

"I'm not asking you to accept him, Bruce. I'm just asking you to accept the fact that _I_ accept him, even if you can't."

He pursed his lips slightly in distaste but he supposed it was a compromise that he could live with. It wasn't as though she would listen to him if he told her not to accept him anyways. "Okay..."

Natasha's eyebrow quirked up. "Okay?" she repeated with uncertainty.

"Okay."

Her smile was genuine before she leaned forward and pressed her lips to his. He was about to kiss her back when they were interrupted.

"Eww, c'mon," Cooper's voice rang out. Natasha's lips smiled against his and he chuckled halfheartedly as she pulled away before he looked at the kid in the doorway. Clint's son gave an exaggerated huff of a sigh, "Now I gotta worry about seeing you do that too?"

Natasha's laugh made Bruce's smile grow a little more as she moved to Cooper and ruffled his hair. "You'll get over it," she informed the child.

"Get over what?" came Lila's question from behind her brother.

"Aunt Nat kissed Doctor Banner," Cooper informed his sister.

Bruce could only shake his head when he heard Laura's laugh in the other room.

"Awesome!" Lila shouted it, "like in a Disney movie!"

"Gross," Cooper grumbled.

And Bruce got to experience Aunt Natasha again.

The redhead wrapped both her arms around Cooper, "You want a kiss too, Coop?"

"No! Ew, no!" Cooper cried out with a laugh as he ducked her attempt at a kiss and ran off.

Bruce watched as Natasha gave him a playful little wink before she went after the boy.

Then surprise hit him further because the little girl he once thought of as shy, likely because it was the only side of her he had ever seen, slapped down a coloring book in front of him and a box of crayons. He looked at the little girl with wonder before he remembered that she had no reason to be afraid of him, to be afraid of the Hulk; Lila probably had no idea he was the Hulk.

Then she handed him a green crayon.

Bruce stared at her and wondered why when the little girl said one of the most astounding things he'd ever heard, something that, in his opinion, only someone with childhood innocence could say, "It's the same color as The Hulk. It's my favorite color now cause you saved Auntie Nat."

 _You_. Not 'Big Guy', 'Other Guy', or 'He'. Bruce almost corrected her. Almost. He didn't have the guts to correct a child and ruin it for her though, that and he wasn't sure she would understand that he and the Hulk were two completely different beings.

"Mommy always says Auntie Nat is the one who always makes sure daddy comes home after fighting bad guys," Lila informed him nonchalantly as she plopped her own coloring book down beside the one she gave him.

She started coloring without much though and he was amused to see her coloring Captain America in various colors of pink and purple. Somehow he knew that Steve would probably find it amusing. He also knew Tony would frame it and stick it on his wall if he could.

"I always asked her that if Auntie Nat was so busy making sure daddy always came home, then who was making sure Auntie Nat came home," Lila told him as she colored away at her picture. "But that's what you do now," she tacked on before smiling up at him.

He was frozen in place with a coloring book of princesses in front of him, his hand hovering over it with a green crayon as he stared at a little girl who was acting like he had done something for her. It took a few moments to fully comprehend what she meant before he told her the only thing he could, "I'll always make sure she comes home."

The grin that formed on on Lila's lips was worth the promise and given that Natasha didn't seem to want to fight anymore anyways, that promise would be a lot easier for him to keep. "You love Auntie Nat?" the little girl asked him next.

He was pretty sure he was getting the third degree from a six year old but he shrugged it off and answered, "Yes."

"Mmm-kay. That makes you Uncle Bruce," Lila stated without a second thought as she gave Captain America red lipstick.

Bruce was too dumbfounded by the little girl calling him 'Uncle' to laugh at the absurdity of the pink and purple Captain America. He never had a normal childhood. He'd never had the privilege of blindly believing in someone because a childish brain said it was okay. While it wasn't really a good thing for kids to do that, it was a truly amazing thing to see firsthand, especially when he was on the receiving end of that blind trust. It was one of the first times in the last month that someone managed to make him forget about the things that might go wrong or could be wrong.

It was a relief.

And spending the day with Natasha and the Barton's was almost like entering a new universe. Natasha was more emotionally free in this house. She was happy in a way that it seemed only Clint's family, her family, could do for her.

Bruce wasn't even sure what it was about being here but he also felt a little more free, more calm.

Disney movies and superhero movies seemed to be the biggest fight Clint's kids have ever had in their lives. One day was full of brother and sister spats, laughter, games, an actual family meal. While to him it looked completely dysfunctional Bruce also knew it was actually just the way a normal family looked and acted.

And later that night when Natasha led him into the guest room to go to bed he finally dared to ask the question that had been on his mind the entire time, "So...how long did it take you to get used to all this?"

Natasha gave the smallest little laugh and he watched as she stripped her clothes to get changed. "A while," she admitted. "When Clint first brought me here I didn't want anything to do with him or Laura," she told him. He watched as she shimmied into a tank top and a pair of shorts. "You didn't have to come here, Bruce, but you did. And you didn't have to color with Lila or build a bottle rocket with Cooper but you did that too..." she pointed out.

"Well, the bottle rocket was cool but I think I really excelled at coloring," Bruce joked.

Natasha's laugh was deep and full this time and he couldn't help but smile when she came over, gripped his shirt and kissed him with ease as though they had done it all their lives. "I know that I overreacted the other night and I know it wasn't fair to you—"

"It's alright, Natasha," Bruce insisted, putting his hands on her shoulders as she gave him an apologetic look that he hadn't expected. "If something bothers you, I'd rather you tell me than bottle it all up inside," he insisted.

"Still..."

"You let that go before you left, the sleeping thing I mean," Bruce told her, "it was when I said no to coming here that you walked away..." Her lips parted again to speak but he shook his head as his hands traveled from her shoulders and down her arms. "I get it now," he told her, "I didn't get it when you asked me but I do now." Those normally piercing greens eyes were soft and they looked right at him as he told her, "This is your family. You were inviting me to spend time with your family..."

Natasha gave him that little sideways smile he loved but it was also the smile that told him she knew something. "Tony had to explain it to you, didn't he?" came her questioned.

He snorted out a laugh before he nodded, "Yeah..."

"Well, I guess catching onto personal hints isn't something either of us have ever been very good at," she mentioned with a chuckle.

"Probably true," Bruce agreed before he inclined his head, "but I figure we can learn it together?"

Natasha's smile was brilliant as always and he leaned forward to kiss her again. "Suppose that's a plan..." she agreed against his lips. "Speaking of plans," she brought up Bruce quirked an eyebrow up as she unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it off before tossing it to the floor, "I think I have a plan for the sleeping thing."

He swallowed dryly when she unbuttoned his pants and he triple checked that the door was actually closed considering she was stripping him. "Uh...um..." was all he could seem to stutter out.

"I still dig that," she tacked on with a chuckle. "Now kick your pants off and come on," she ordered.

Bruce watched as Natasha climbed into the bed and he took a deep breath before he did as she told him. He kicked the pants aside and climbed into the opposite side of the bed clad only in his boxers. "How is this different from usual?" he questioned in confusion.

"Because we're clearly doing this wrong," Natasha told him with a smile. "I always sleep on your shoulder...I think this needs to be reversed," she explained casually, "and then when you're sleeping you'll hear my heart beating."

It was so simple. So ridiculous.

And Bruce couldn't believe he hadn't thought of it himself.

He rested his head down on her shoulder, one of his arms resting across her waist. He thought the reversal would be strange but instead he found he preferred it when her arm curled slightly around him as well. The steady thump-thump-thump was the biggest relief, like a lullaby for his aching soul.

"Bruce?"

"Hmmm...yeah?" he questioned.

"When we go back to the tower, I wanna see the Big Guy," Natasha informed him.

"See him?" he questioned as he opened his eyes again to look at her.

Natasha nodded against the top of his head. "I wasn't lying when I said I care about him too," she explained, "and if I'm honest...I miss him."

"You miss...the Other Guy...?" he questioned in confusion. He realized just how bad that actually sounded after he asked it because the Other Guy grumbled in his head. It actually made him snicker. "Don't answer that...and okay," he told her after a beat.

"Okay?"

"Yeah...given the grumble in the back of my head right now? He misses you too," Bruce informed her.

He could actually feel her smile against the top of his head.

"Nat?"

"Mmhm?" she murmured out.

The words came out easily this time. Not the first time he had to say them, not under dire circumstances, they just left his lips with ease, "I love you."

There was silence from her for a good minute and he knew the words and even the idea of love was new to her. He didn't say it expecting to hear her say it back, he said it because it was how he felt and after Ross and Stasia, after realizing he had come so close to never being able to say it again, he wanted to make sure she still knew. But finally she responded, "I...love you too."

It was hesitant.

Quiet.

And he would relish in how raw and honest she was with him for the rest of his life.

* * *

 _One week later..._

Natasha was grateful that Bruce held up his end of the agreement on letting her see the Big Guy. She watched him transform inside the Hulk cell and this time she stood on the inside as he did it rather than the outside. And when he immediately looked at her rather than throwing whatever was closest to pick up she smiled at him.

"Ta-sha."

Her smile grew as she stepped towards him without hesitation. "Hey Big Guy," she offered up in greeting. "You heard what I said to Bruce, right?" she asked him, "that I care about you just like I care about him?"

"Mmmm..." he hummed out the acknowledgment.

Natasha stared up at him from a mere foot away before she threw caution to the wind. She stepped forward and pressed both her hands against his chest before she looked up again at his unusually confused expression. There was no good way to hug The Hulk because he was just too large so instead she leaned forward and rested her head against him as well. "I do care about you, Big Guy..."

The Hulk was stiff as a board but she didn't let that deter her. She supposed he was lacking in someone—anyone really, showing him affection for the entirety that he'd been a part of Bruce. They were all on a learning curve and it was only right to include him as well.

Minutes passed by before enlarged arms enveloped her in a cautious embrace.

"Hulk care about Tasha too."

Natasha knew that long before now.

" _But ruin is a gift,  
Ruin is the road to transformation."_

* * *

 **There it is. The final chapter :)**

 **The final story will be called 'Never Say Never'. Once it's ready to go I'll post the sneak peak for it on this story so you'll know to keep an eye out if you aren't a follower of mine! Hope you've enjoyed the ride for In Ruins!**


	20. Sneak Peak: Never Say Never

A bit of a wait but now that I've gotten all the other random plot bunnies out of my head for the moment, it's finally time to get back to what you're all really waiting for. This isn't very long, just a small scene from the upcoming story. I'm not entirely sure that new chapter alerts are even working yet but hopefully you all will see this anyhow even if they don't. Enjoy!

 **Sneak Peak: Never Say Never**

Natasha stood in her plexiglass cage of sorts. It wasn't large. Three feet across in each direction, maybe seven feet high. She could stand in it without issue but it wasn't exactly a comfortable abode for any length of time. Still, she had known what she was getting herself into when she came here on her own and of her own accord, albeit the trap door in the floor that dropped her into this cage _was_ unexpected.

"You truly have no idea what those nanites were meant to do, do you?" her would-be captor questioned.

She turned her head back in the direction of the man who spoke, the German accent still weighing heavily on his words despite the English language he used. She didn't say anything, didn't reveal any emotion on her face. All she did was stare at him with an empty expression.

"They were one of a kind," he told her, circling her cage like a vulture—but she didn't turn with him—no, she just stared blankly any time he came into her field of vision. "Impossible to replicate," he mentioned next as he came to a stop in front of her, "which is why we needed you."

Natasha leaned against the plexiglass and quirked an eyebrow up at him as she folded her arms across her chest. "Alright, I'll bite. Those things burned out of my system within days," she pointed out to him as she gave the barest of shrugs, "so what use am I to you now, exactly?"

He snickered. "You truly don't know," he mumbled out. "Let me show you," he offered.

She watched as he pulled the syringe out and she couldn't hide her amusement. "Go ahead and open the cage," she dared him, "you won't live to stick me with that thing if you do."

"Oh I'm not letting you out," he assured her, "I built that for you. I know better than to let you out of it."

Natasha shifted her eyes to the side where the tiniest slot opened in the plexiglass but unfortunately there was nowhere for her to go that got her far enough away from being stuck by that it.

"Just stand there and relax. Don't make this worse than it has to be," he stated with a chuckle and a bemused shake of his head.

She stood still, playing the part of the eager-to-please captive. Only the needle came through and he barely got any of her blood into the syringe before she jerked her arm up suddenly, breaking the needle off of the syringe on the other side. She plucked the needle from her arm despite the fact she'd made herself bleed because of her actions, having ripped the skin where the needle had been inside her. She shifted her face to look at him as she twirled the needle between her fingers as she spoke, "You know I'm going to kill you with this, don't you?"

"I don't doubt that threat for a second, Miss Romanoff," he answered as he walked away with the vial he plucked out of the syringe, "but this is enough for the test I need."

Natasha watched him as he put the vial into a tiny machine by the computer and she remained silent while he set the computer up to run whatever test he wanted to run. She waited until he wandered back in front of her before she spoke again, "So placate me here. What was inside those nanites that was so important you had to threaten a bunch of kids to get me here? What were they supposed to do?"

He chuckled, "They have a repair and reconstruction algorithm built in."

"Repair and reconstruction?" she dared to ask, "for what purpose?"

"Why, for Doctor Banner of course," he answered as though it were the most obvious explanation in the world, "they had his DNA inside of them."

"Those were meant for him? To do what?"

"His _original_ DNA."

That broke her facade of indifference and she narrowed her eyes at him instantaneously, "How would you have gotten that?"

"Leftover from his time working for the military," came the answer, "the only sample left that was untainted with his current mutated genetics."

Natasha swallowed dryly as she watched him. "You were going to use that on him," she murmured out, "repair and reconstruction, that's what you said. You thought if you used that on him that you could kill him."

"It would have killed his monster, repaired his DNA," the man corrected.

Natasha stared at him. To her that _was_ killing the Bruce that she knew. It was an instantly selfish thought that crossed her mind in that moment, one that she wished she hadn't had. Would or could a normal Bruce—a Bruce without his monster lurking within—still care about her so deeply that he could look past her own?

Worse yet...

How would he feel when he realized that his one chance at a cure died when it was injected into her instead of him?

* * *

 **There's your sneak peak. I look forward to seeing you all during the official start of Never Say Never which will arrive within the next couple of days!**


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